Manufacturing Ammo (How to do it effortlessly)

[DEADZERO]

I made the plant and all, but im struggling to have enough of the required materials. I saw a few videos of people showing off their power plant that makes them unlimted ammo without having to do anything.

How do I do this on a more simple scale?

[AlexMBrennan]

I saw a few videos of people showing off their power plant that makes them unlimted ammo without having to do anything.

The obvious answer would be to look at the video to figure out what they did.

Failing that look up who sells shipments of whatever junk you need, and buy a SSD to make the fast travel tolerable.

[AriekB]

http://www.shacknews.com/article/95485/fallout-4-build-an-ammunition-plant-for-unlimited-ammo-heres-how

[Jouni]

Here's my ammo factory in Vault 88:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1183789397

Vacuum hoppers take the required components from the two containers in the middle and feed them to ammo plants. Ammo plants convert them into ammo which is dropped onto conveyor belt that transports it to conveyor storage. The conveyor storage is on the left behind ammo plants. Other manufactories are where I'm standing. Note that there are extra floor pieces under hoppers and manufactories. This is necessary in order to easily move stuff from one conveyor belt to another(ammo boxes drop over the side rail of the lower belt).

Lead and Fertilizer are the components that limit your ammo production since all other components are plentiful. Lead can be looted from a few respawning loacations and Fertilizer is easiest to obtain by buying shipments.

Main sources of Lead are Boxing Gym near Old North Church and federal supply cache 84NE in Glowing Sea. These are both very small locations. Hardware Town has a smaller supply of Lead near the front door. Another smaller supply is found on top of the Wreck of the FMS Northern Star but you can just climb there from the front of the ship. These 4 locations give you about 250 units of Lead every time they respawn. Keep in mind that the Lead is in the form of gym weights so you need either companion or Strong Back rank 4 to bring it back without making multiple trips.

Best places to buy Fertilizer shipments are Greygarden(Supervisor Greene, 2 shipments), Abernathy farm(Connie Abernathy, 2 shipments) and Diamond City(Myrna and Percy, both sell one shipment). Percy is in Myrna's house during daytime but you can still trade with him normally.

[DEADZERO]

Is it worth to buy these shipments or should I just buy ammo?

[Jouni]

Originally posted by DEADZERO27:

Is it worth to buy these shipments or should I just buy ammo?

It is for 2 reasons.

1. It's cheaper.
Fertilizer shipment(25 units of the stuff) costs 360 caps with my charisma and perks but .45 and 5.56 cost 2 caps per bullet. If Fertilizer is the only component that costs you caps then the cost per bullet is 1.44 caps. 5mm ammo costs only 1 cap per round but has the same production cost.

2. Merchants sell pretty limited amounts of ammo. I use automatic assault rifle at the moment and if I didn't make my own ammo I would have to run from shop to shop every now and then to stockpile enough 5.56. My last batch of 5.56 was 4500 rounds and I still have about 2000 left. Using minigun as your sole weapon(unless it's the explosive variant) would be pretty painful if you had to rely only on buying ammo.

Buy Fertilizer shipments but don't buy Lead Shipments. Buying Lead shipments is waste of caps. Unless you are a water baron or you are later in the game when caps are no longer an issue and you just want as much ammo as you can get.

[DEADZERO]

To be honest, I havent played in a year and im getting back into it. I am level 25 and have no idea what kind of build i made. Ive mostly being going around getting settlements for the minute men. Im at the point of the story where I think im supposed to make a choice, but im not entirely sure. Been holding it off because I dont want to decide just yet. I bought the season pass before the price jacked up and i havent played any of the DLC yet. So much is new to me, kind of over whelming. The most ammo i have for a gun is 270 rounds of .38, 101 cells, and 80 rounds of 10mm. I feel like that is super low for any kind of mission. I have about 5800 caps

[Jouni]

Originally posted by DEADZERO27:

The most ammo i have for a gun is 270 rounds of .38, 101 cells, and 80 rounds of 10mm. I feel like that is super low for any kind of mission. I have about 5800 caps

.38 weapons are only useful if they have some legendary effect in them that is good with high fire rate weapons. I would recommend you to buy or make a Combat Rifle, put some better weapon mods to it and make a good amount of .45 rounds since you only need Steel and Fertilizer to make them. You can make Grape Mentats at the chemistry station to lower the buying cost for shipments as well as eat any other chems(Day Tripper, X-cell) or wear any clothing that further increases your charisma. Connie Abernathy also gives you permanent discount if you completed the quest in there. You need at least Gun Nut rank 2 to make .45 rounds.

[DEADZERO]

I feel like steel is always low for me. Ya I can go around and scavenge some junk but so many things require steel that it's hard to have a good amount of it. I do have gun nut rank 2 and connies name does sound familiar. Thanks for the help. Almost tempted to start over and relearn everything. But after putting in 46 hours when the game came out and only reaching level 25 makes it seem like it's a big step back. I even have storage units filled with good loot that I don't use. I have no idea what's in them.

[paugus]

Originally posted by DEADZERO27:

I feel like steel is always low for me. Ya I can go around and scavenge some junk but so many things require steel that it's hard to have a good amount of it. I do have gun nut rank 2 and connies name does sound familiar. Thanks for the help. Almost tempted to start over and relearn everything. But after putting in 46 hours when the game came out and only reaching level 25 makes it seem like it's a big step back. I even have storage units filled with good loot that I don't use. I have no idea what's in them.

If it makes you feel any better, I restart just about every time I reach level 40. Good loot sadly becomes largely irrelevant once you understand all of the game's mechanics and encounters. Don't be too attached to it.

[DEADZERO]

lol I have 2 Flamers and 3 Fat boys about 3000 flamer fuel and 4 mini nukes. I rarely use them in any fallout game. only once in fallout 3 when i was forced to by the game. I consider them too valuable to use.

[Jouni]

If you have extra caps then general store merchants sell 100 and 250 unit shipments of steel.

[DEADZERO]

Whats an acceptable amount of ammo i should be carrying?

Cells?
.45?
10mm?
etc.

[paugus]

Originally posted by DEADZERO27:

Whats an acceptable amount of ammo i should be carrying?

Cells?
.45?
10mm?
etc.

Depends on how far from vendors you travel. I usually carry about 400 of my main weapon ammo (which is usually a rifle or 10mm). If you're in survival, ammo has weight but if you aren't, you can carry as much as you want.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

If you can find the girl who sells a Brahmin, at least in my game, once you meet here she stays where she was, and every time the cell reloads, she has a new Brahmin. You can create a Fertilizer farm or perhaps even send the Brahmin into Vault 88 (Not sure on that).

If you can't send Brahmin to Vault 88, send them to Murkwater Construction as a livestock farm, and just bring the fertilizer to V88 manually.

I wish you could mine lead ore or something. It only comes from extremely heavy items, or Pencils which I like using for paralysis darts more.

Originally posted by DEADZERO27:

Whats an acceptable amount of ammo i should be carrying?

Cells?
.45?
10mm?
etc.

Depends entirely on the gun. .45 ammo for example, is so common, you could make due leaving with less than 5 reloads and probably still find enough in field. 5.56 or 7.62 that is much more unlikely. Cells usually come in huge spurts, usually from attacking Synth or Brotherhood or Gunners, and aren't particularly common. Plasma, to have a reliable source requires Scrounger 2 at least.

The most effect ammo types based on Damage and abundance:

.45
.308
.38
5.56
Fusion Cells
.50
Fusion Core (Charging Laser Gatling only)
Plasma Cartridge
.44
7.62 (Nuka World only)
2mm EMC
10mm
Shotgun Shells
.45-70 (Far Harbor only)
Flamer Fuel
Missiles
Mini Nuke

Note that this list can change if you get a particularly good Legendary. For example, a wounding shotgun or pipe rifle (.38) can Skyrocket shells or .38 to top-tier damage-weight-abundance ratio. A .38 Wounding or Explosive Pipe Gun/Shotgun is a prize indeed. But in general, .45 provides the best weight-damage-abundance which means your primary weapon should be chambered in .45. Where as .44 or Plasma is quite a bit more rare, so you can't rely on it as a staple.

[DEADZERO]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

.....

Depends entirely on the gun. .45 ammo for example, is so common, you could make due leaving with less than 5 reloads and probably still find enough in field. 5.56 or 7.62 that is much more unlikely. Cells usually come in huge spurts, usually from attacking Synth or Brotherhood or Gunners, and aren't particularly common. Plasma, to have a reliable source requires Scrounger 2 at least.

The most effect ammo types based on Damage and abundance:

.45
.308
.38
5.56
Fusion Cells
.50
Fusion Core (Charging Laser Gatling only)
Plasma Cartridge
.44
7.62 (Nuka World only)
2mm EMC
10mm
Shotgun Shells
.45-70 (Far Harbor only)
Flamer Fuel
Missiles
Mini Nuke

Note that this list can change if you get a particularly good Legendary. For example, a wounding shotgun or pipe rifle (.38) can Skyrocket shells or .38 to top-tier damage-weight-abundance ratio. A .38 Wounding or Explosive Pipe Gun/Shotgun is a prize indeed. But in general, .45 provides the best weight-damage-abundance which means your primary weapon should be chambered in .45. Where as .44 or Plasma is quite a bit more rare, so you can't rely on it as a staple.

Thank you, this helps me a lot!!

Also is it worth keeping every type of weapon in your inventory? Or just limit it to 3 or so guns?