What determines how much you can carry? What should I be focusing on when I level up?

Your question is a bit confusing

from http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Strength: your carry weight in FONV ranges from 160 at 1 Strength to 250 at 10 Strength

as for leveling up, you cannot raise your SPECIAL attributes at all exccept by purchasing the very expensive implants (only one per attribute) which only raises each attribute by 1, unless you meant what skills you should be focusing on which would be dependent on what kind of character you were playing

your strength special determines how much you can carry. and with 10 strength you can carry 250 pounds.

the only way to increase your special attributes is either through the intense training perk (which is not recomended)

you can also use implants, but those are expensive and you can only increase an attribute by 1.
now, theres a perk whos name escapes me at the moment which lets you carry 50 more pounds of equipment.


anyway, how much you can carry shouldn't be the only thing influencing how you build your character.

Shrug I guess it depends on your playstyle. I am not a minmaxer and I feel the level 2 and 4 perk choices are fairly flexible and allow for an Intense Training or two

While this is an option, depending on your level of Roleplaying (if any) this may not be something youd be interested in


Strong Back

Yup, same. Plus I don't use VATS so half or more of the Perks are "useless" to me...so I like to get IT a couple times to make up for the fact I often like a high CHA.

Weight carry can be extremely frustrating in the game, depending on your patience & roleplaying/realism desires. I think it's 10lbs extra carry weight capacity per point in STR, which doesn't even cover most Legion amors. So you'll never be able to be to 'pick up everything' without constant trips back to a merchant. Pick & choose what's worth picking up. Price per pound, haha. If you're on PC, you can easily mod it however.