Finally got the 2500 points in Survival. Here are my tips for consistent point gathering that doesn't require winning:
1.) Be very aggressive at the start. As many hits as possible. Place a ration trap in the middle of the early crowd if you can. Pistols obviously are nice. Arrow 1 any weaklings. If you pick up a weapon, spam it.
2.) Don't spend too much time salvaging stuff in the near camps. high chance of dying and spawning somewhere you don't want to. Start running to any far off (not TOO far off) supply area. If it is safe, you can rack up a few points by scavenging and setting traps, but the important bit is:
3.) Die as soon as the grace period ends. Either time the hunger or fall off a cliff. If you are in a supply area you should see 10 to 20 motes right away. Grab them!
4.) Find a survivor and spam the 1 trap in front of him. 2 points per hit, doesn't affect the survivor at all. Even if you find one standing still you can place the trap so the edge just touches to get the points. If you manage to time it well, this is an easy 20-30 points. Grab more motes and repeat.
5.) If you see a weak survivor you can use a 3 trap to kill if you have the motes.
You still run the chance of dying early (pistol, general chaos, arrow 4, etc) and spawning someplace away from everything and only really able to gather some scavenging points and lose the rhythm, but you learn to avoid it.
70-110 points a run. Someone doing the same strat managed 130 once. Even if things go bad at the start, never fewer than 50.
Obviously you may have your own method but this is what I had settled on.
Edit: I say finally but actually only took two (non-short) sessions
