What to scrap and what to keep?

[MrP]

Do you keep stuff like Diods, Monitors, Phones, etc or do you scrap them? The description isn’t really helpful. In general how do you know if something can be used to craft something else or if something is better be scrapped?

[Xaelon]

Scrap items are just that: scrap.

They cannot be reused, refurbished or otherwise crafted into anything.

Mechanically "scrap items" are simply a source of materials that must be sent through a disassembler before they can be used for anything.

[Bigguss Dickuss]

You'll be scrapping every "grey" name item or all the junk that you pick up from most containers like the few that you listed. All the materials from scraped items are what you farm for.
There are also tiers for these "junk" items as you progress through the game so that you end up earning higher level materials that will help you craft the higher tiers of armor. Some of these junk items even have a golden glow on them when you scan the area, they are still meant to be scraped and not sold and you end up getting a rare resource that is used to craft just about everything.
While I'm playing, when I go through an area that I have not looted yet, I honestly just keep spamming "Q" and "F" and once I get back to my base I always check the box to scrap all "junk" items, the other tabs in the disassembly bench are the ones you might want to look through a bit more carefully.
You can also find random furniture items and blueprints in any loot able chest/crate/box/garbage.
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TL:DR disassemble all tiers of scrap items for crafting materials that you can then sort-away into your storage containers

[ShelLuser]

Like the others said: scrap is already labeled as such... most of the loot you collect during exploraiton will be useless other than scrapping it for useful materials.

But there's more to it. For example, any weapons and armor you may find will be marked as "pick ups" which means that you won't be able to repair nor upgrade them. So... you may need to make a choice: either use it for the time being, for example because it could be more powerful than what you currently have. But keep in mind: when it breaks down that's it.

Or... you can opt to scrap it as well, and by doing so getting more parts from it which you may then be able to use for other stuff. This also applies to mods: when you break things down you'll get useful stuff which you may then be able to use to upgrade other mods.

So this isn't only about the scrap, there's more to it.

[Fuzen]

At some point, you’ll have chests full of useless salvaged trash and it really ends up becoming an issue.

So you’ll want to make a chest or two (if you don’t have 64 slots chests) for unsalvaged junk that don’t give rubber and circuit boards. It’s literally all that matters. Everything else, you’ll get in droves, whether you want it or not.

My usual process it go back to base, check the “useless junk” chest and merge stacks, then I go to the disassembler and disassemble everything left. Then I merge my recycled items with the rest in my salvage chest, but trash metal scraps and adhesive. I really don’t need 10k of these. 🤣