Highlights

  • Collect and store consumable items carefully to avoid settlers consuming valuable items.
  • Prioritize low-weight items with high yield for scrapping to optimize inventory space.
  • Some items, like ingredients for chems, should be kept intact for crafting purposes.

Seeing that Fallout 4 takes place in the aftermath of a nuclear war, you can expect to encounter many items that used to be useful before the war but are just junk now. There is junk in every nook and cranny of the Commonwealth. While these items can't be equipped or consumed, they can be dropped, sold to vendors, or just scrapped.

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This game has survival elements, so you'll want to hoard every little thing you find. That dusty and old teddy bear? Take it. Maybe your son will like it. However, As you progress through the game, weapons, food, and junk start to pill up, taking up precious inventory space. So what to do you then? Head to the nearest settlement and start scrapping it!

Updated August 15, 2023 by Quinton O'Connor: We've added fresh ideas for junk-scrapping as players doubtless revisit Fallout 4 ahead of Bethesda's long-awaited Next Big Thing, the sci-fi space adventure Starfield.

13 Consumables Will Be Consumed By Settlers

Fallout 4 Deathclaw

When you collect junk, it's not just random items, weapons and armor that can be scrapped. A lot of the bad consumable items you find during your journey can be used for a variety of crafting recipes as well, such as dirty water or the meat of various wasteland beasts.

The only thing you should know is that when you do store these consumables inside the workstation of a settlement, there's a chance your settlers will end up consuming them. If you have particularly valuable consumables like Deathclaw meat, it's better to store it in a trunk.

12 Prioritize Low Weight And High Yield

Fallout 4 Steel Can

Junk can be found absolutely everywhere in the Commonwealth. No matter where you go, you'll most likely run into random pre-war items that can be used for something new. Some items will yield a lot of materials, but they might be heavy to take along with you, unless you have a companion.

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As such, prioritize items that are low in weight but have a relatively high yield. One great example is a tin can, which can yield you a decent amount of aluminum, which in turn is a versatile material used in a bunch of different builds.

11 Some Items Are Better Left Unscrapped

Fallout 4 Chemistry Workstation

While a lot of items gain value from being scrapped, some items are needed in crafting recipes as they are. This is especially the case for any ingredients used for chems at the chemistry station. If you're into making chems from scratch, it's worth being careful with your junk.

Many items such as cleaning products and some loot from wasteland monsters for example are commonly found in chem recipes, so make sure to check in advance what you can use when crafting at your chem station before going ham with scrapping.

10 Settlers Will Scavenge For You

Fallout 4 Settlers

It might be tempting for you to fill up your settlements workbench with a mountain of junk so that you'll never have to worry about items again, but this isn't actually ideal. Settlers who are unemployed will actually generate one piece of junk per day into your workstation.

Even better, if you have a scavenging station with settlers assigned to it, you'll generate even more junk thanks to your settlers. So, in conclusion, always make sure there's a bit of extra space in your workstation so that your unemployed settlers or scavengers are actually getting value.

9 Use Weapon And Armor Workbenches For Specific Junk

Fallout 4 Weapons Workbench At Sanctuary

Most of the items you find in the Commonwealth can be scrapped at workbenches or by throwing them on the ground at a settlement and scrapping them manually, but it's actually a bad idea to do this. When you find armor and weapons that you're simply not a fan of, you can scrap them for junk as well, once you're certain they have no mods that you're interested in keeping.

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Make sure to do this at the proper workstation, however. For weapons, use weapons workbenches, and for armor use armor workbenches. This ensures you get the most yield from scrapping your weapons at the end of the day. What you can't scrap you can sell to a vendor.

8 Junk Is Useful!

Blue teddy bear from Fallout 4

While playing, you'll have a limited amount of materials you can carry around when exploring and searching for loot in Fallout 4's world. Sure, increasing a character's strength increases their weight capacity, and that will let you move around with more items, but getting rid of some stuff might do the trick if that isn't an option.

However, instead of just taking everything out of the inventory and deleting it, just scrap junk instead. Why? When junk is scrapped, a new component is obtained that can then be used to build stuff for a settlement or create mods for weapons and armor.

7 There Are Three Types Of Junk You Can Scrap

A pile of scrappable junk from Fallout 4

As the sole survivor, you'll come across three types of scrappable junk: settlement junk, weapons and armor, and wasteland junk.

Found in the different settlements available in the game, settlement junk is highlighted yellow in the workshop menu. Moving on, weapons and armor can be looted from dead enemies or found lying around in the world. Once a certain level is reached, you can get good use out of low-level gear and weapons by scrapping them.

Finally, wasteland junk is everything else found in the wasteland. From a cigarette package to a microscope, anything can be scrapped down for pieces.

6 Where To Scrap Junk

Weapon workbench from Faloout 4

To scrap wasteland junk, head over to your nearest settlement and look for a workshop. Once there, choose the "store all junk" option, and the items will be automatically stored away from the inventory. This way, the next time you want to build something, just launch the build menu and start building; the workshop will make sure to put any junk to use.

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For armor or weapons, the process is slightly different as you have to go to the weapons workbench and find the items you want to scrap in a list. Once you find the item, just press the "scrap" button. Finally, for settlement junk, open the workshop menu and select an item in the settlement; you'll notice which ones can only be scrapped as they will be highlighted yellow.

5 Pay Attention To Rarity

Scrappable raider chest piece fallout 4

When picking up wasteland junk, the game will tell you which components you will receive from said item. However, when scrapping other items (like weapons mods, static objects, or armor mods), only a fraction of the components that were used to craft the item in the first place will be received.

This is the tricky part. The types and amounts of components players received when scrapping these last items will be determined by rarity and scrap scalar. Rarity has four values (common, uncommon, rare, and zero yields). The rarer the component, the higher scrapper rank is needed to obtain it.

4 Some Perks Help You When Scrapping Things

Perk menu from Fallout 4

In Fallout, perks can take your game from 0 to 100 in one second. In Fallout 4, the perk system merged with the skill system from previous games; this means that when a player levels up, they will receive a perk point. These points can be spent using the Pip-Boy.

When it comes to scrapping, lookout for perks that will be helpful when building or creating mods. For example, the Scrapper perk makes it possible to salvage uncommon components when scrapping weapons, armor, and settlement objects.

3 Be Careful With The Store All Junk Option

Store all junk Fallout 4 workbench

One of the easiest ways to scrap junk is to store it all in a workshop; this will automatically scrap the junk to get the component required while building a settlement.

However, the game doesn't discriminate between a regular piece of junk and something special given by a companion. Everything goes into the workshop. To fix this, it is possible to handpick the item you want to keep from your inventory and store them in a nearby container or use mods like Not Junk, which changes the category of some junk items into misc items so they won't get scrapped.

2 Add Supply Lines To Your Settlements

Supply Lines showing in a Pip Boy

A new mechanic Fallout 4 introduces to the series is the option to build and manage settlements. In these settlements, walls, floors, and roofs can be placed and then customized, sort of like a more apocalyptic version of The Sims.

Once you have more than one settlement, a supply line can be added to connect them, allowing them to share resources and inventory space. The Sole Survivor can craft using junk, aid, and misc items in the workshop's inventories from all linked settlements. This way, you can deposit junk in any linked settlement instead of fast traveling to the one you want to build in.

1 Sometimes You Have To Decide Between Crafting Or Selling

Gold bar stats Fallout 4

Yes, scrapping junk has its purpose, and while it can be a tedious activity at times, it's worth it in the end. However, while looting The Commonwealth, items will be encountered that will make you choose between selling or scrapping them.

Examples of this are copper, silver, or gold bars. Each bar is stackable up to ten units, and while you might think it makes sense to scrap them, the bars should be sold for caps instead. Those can then be used to purchase far more units of whatever the component was in the first place.

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