Junk Collector

[Phantus]

Can I forgo all the junk collection and still have a solid playthrough or is it unavoidable? I'd prefer to simply enjoy the combat and quests rather than collect ashtrays and clipboards. Cheers.

[casualsailor]

Junk collection is necessary for modding weapons and armor and for making upgrades to Power Armor. Also junk items permit the building of settlement structures and facilities.

It's certainly possible to avoid doing this although these modifications can make the game much easier.

There is a tagging system to permit you to identify the junk you need so you don't need to collect unnecessary items.

You can also purchase these junk items and shipments of the components that they break down into from vendors.

[Oliver900]

All I normally collect are the rare things (adhesive, ballistic fiber, nuclear mat, etc.). The mods on weapons and armor are great and most of the other stuff can either be bought or scrapped from settlements.

And before anyone says anything, adhesive is not technically rare but it is used in almost EVERY mod.

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Oliver900:

All I normally collect are the rare things (adhesive, ballistic fiber, nuclear mat, etc.). The mods on weapons and armor are great and most of the other stuff can either be bought or scrapped from settlements.

And before anyone says anything, adhesive is not technically rare but it is used in almost EVERY mod.

This is a smart strategy. At the very beginning your going to grab everything because screws can be in short supply. But as the game goes on you learn to tag only those rare items that you either don't have a cashe of or can't buy from a vendor.

When Trashcan Carla shows I'll typically buy anything with crystal or nuclear material from her since these two items seemed to be the ones I used the most for scopes and etc. But if I'm going to use Ballastic weave, I'll start buying anything that contains it from the beginning too.

I typically break down all my junk into its components every few trips. That way I know exactly how many screws, adhesive, etc. that I have. Then I tag those items I need or in short supply.

As long as you know what you need, collecting junk is not a chore in fact it can be rewarding when you find that package of military duct tape (ballistic fiber).

Edit: And a quick way to do this is to pull all the junk from the workshop and put it in a container. Then go to your weapons bench / armor bench and pull up the next level of upgrades for your builds. Since you have none of the components you can quickly "tag all."

Then dump your junk back in your workshop, and untag anything you have plenty of.

Learning to use the tag system and which vendors sells shipments of rare stuff is part of the game.

[AlexMBrennan]

There is a tagging system to permit you to identify the junk you need so you don't need to collect unnecessary items.

You should mention that this requires one to waste two perks.

I typically break down all my junk into its components every few trips

You should mention that the game does not have a convenient interface for this, forcing you to first drop all items on the floor and then scrapping all of them, which is pretty much the definition of tedium and "waste of time". Or you could buy the contraption DLC to un-break the broken crafting in the base game.

[{w00t}Trouble]

Best way, (although personal preference) is to get local leader so they share resources, then after gaining a settlement just collect EVERYTHING not nailed down from the nearest location to a settlement and break it all down/dump it in the workshop.

If you want to build huge settlements, then you'll need a lot of junk, or you could buy resource packs from traders, otherwise if you're building settlements so they're bare bones and self sufficient, then clearing a couple of towns is generally more than enough to carry you through.

If the latter, tagging items for gears, oil and microchips, is generally enough to get any defences set up you'd like, the rest being simple wood and steel which are common or can be scrapped once you get there. :)

[{w00t}Trouble]

As a reply to the previous comment, tagging items doesn't require ANY perk, simply go to the junk tab, hit "c" i believe, then you can simply click any reasource you wish to search for, any item containing that resource will have a magnifying glass next to it when you mouse over.

You will need the corresponding resource in your inventory to be able to tag it however.

[Phantus]

All great responses, thank you. My goal was to get an understanding of what would be deemed "must haves" and "overlookables". When reviewing mod suggestions I kept seeing people complaining that they felt like garbage collectors with a gun so I wanted to get a feel for what was integral to success and what could be chalked up to tedium.

One last question: Top 3 items I shouldn't break down but keep as a whole?

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

There is a tagging system to permit you to identify the junk you need so you don't need to collect unnecessary items.

You should mention that this requires one to waste two perks.

I typically break down all my junk into its components every few trips

You should mention that the game does not have a convenient interface for this, forcing you to first drop all items on the floor and then scrapping all of them, which is pretty much the definition of tedium and "waste of time". Or you could buy the contraption DLC to un-break the broken crafting in the base game.

What perk are you talking about? The tagging system does not require a perk to use.

But yes scrapping is less than convinent. It is why I got rid of Scrap Scrap because I wanted to use foundations in Sanctuary to drop my junk on and I would accidentally delete the foundation with the mod.

[{w00t}Trouble]

To be fair I ussually scrap in bulk, so even though I may be dropping over 50 items, they're in packs of 10+ of each, takes about 30 - 60 seconds to drop and scrap. Just be sure to do it somewhere with a nice light floor and open space, last thing you want is to drop junk into the shrubbery.

Theirs a few mods that allow scrap collection to be simplified, off the top of my head theirs some kind of "portable scrap" mod but I choose not to use any such mods as its allowed me to be more picky about what junk I pick up.

Top three items in my opinion would be Teddy bears, Desk fans for that apocalyptic cooling solution and possibly Pre-War money so you can feel like a rich mofo. :x

Nothing like laying in hundreds of Pre-War bills holding a thousand Teddys while getting cooled down by your collection of desk fans, but in all seriousness, all junk items are just that, junk, so your three will depend on what junk you deem as worthy to keep, but if you're not keeping teddy bears you're not playing fallout!

Robot models that get placed into the "misc" category are kinda cool, apparently they have no actual quest use but are labelled as quest items if you try to scrap them, merely so they're limited to being a collectable.

Kinda makes you wish you could put them into a mini arena and watch them fight it out, which technically would be possible but I havn't seen a mod for that.

Tiny robot wars, yeah!

[Phantus]

Originally posted by {w00t}Trouble:

To be fair I ussually scrap in bulk, so even though I may be dropping over 50 items, they're in packs of 10+ of each, takes about 30 - 60 seconds to drop and scrap. Just be sure to do it somewhere with a nice light floor and open space, last thing you want is to drop junk into the shrubbery.

Theirs a few mods that allow scrap collection to be simplified, off the top of my head theirs some kind of "portable scrap" mod but I choose not to use any such mods as its allowed me to be more picky about what junk I pick up.

Top three items in my opinion would be Teddy bears, Desk fans for that apocalyptic cooling solution and possibly Pre-War money so you can feel like a rich mofo. :x

Nothing like laying in hundreds of Pre-War bills holding a thousand Teddys while getting cooled down by your collection of desk fans, but in all seriousness, all junk items are just that, junk, so your three will depend on what junk you deem as worthy to keep, but if you're not keeping teddy bears you're not playing fallout!

Robot models that get placed into the "misc" category are kinda cool, apparently they have no actual quest use but are labelled as quest items if you try to scrap them, merely so they're limited to being a collectable.

Kinda makes you wish you could put them into a mini arena and watch them fight it out, which technically would be possible but I havn't seen a mod for that.

Tiny robot wars, yeah!

That teddy bear analogy is what I call "Thursday night". Good livin if you can get it. I stumbled across minature robot limbs in Concord. Was wondering what they were for. The only DLC I've purchased is Automatron so I was thinking I'd hold on to these for later. Thanks for the advice.

[{w00t}Trouble]

No, the yellow limbs are just scrap items, I'm talking actual miniature robot models, either in complete form, or a "kit" which when interacted with creates a model.

However those yellow scrap pieces are apparently fairly valuable to traders, I still would have preferred being able to fit them together into my own robotic pony, then I could have made some Horse armor... no, nevermind.

But in All seriousness, you'll mostly get robot models from lunch boxes and they make cool little desk ornaments.

[Phantus]

Originally posted by {w00t}Trouble:

No, the yellow limbs are just scrap items, I'm talking actual miniature robot models, either in complete form, or a "kit" which when interacted with creates a model.

However those yellow scrap pieces are apparently fairly valuable to traders, I still would have preferred being able to fit them together into my own robotic pony, then I could have made some Horse armor... no, nevermind.

But in All seriousness, you'll mostly get robot models from lunch boxes and they make cool little desk ornaments.

Cool, thanks for clearing that up.