Scavenge everything?

[Powerkiter]

What's the best strategy for collecting stuff that you find? Should you be choosy about what you pick up or should you collect everything?

What about scrapping the abandoned buildings? Should you search then for stuff first or just scrap them?

[Tim Timsen]

If you scrap the building, then the things that stand/stood and lie/lied inside it will just fall on the ground.
If you're talking about the collapsed buildings in Sanctuary, they don't contain anything.
If you're using a mod like Spring Cleaning, then make a quicksave, look what happens when you scrap a "filled" building and if its contents disappear without being added to the workshop, quickload and don't do it that way.

[ChemicalBacon]

If you are referring to sanctuary, just scrap them.

And loose items (aid items/ weapons/ whatever) will fall to the floor wyhen you scrap something, or be transferred to the settlement workbench if they are in a container.
You will lose nothing

[Sentient_Toaster]

Lightweight modded weapons can be useful for scrapping purposes if you have Scrapper perked up. Armor tends to be heavier for the materials and is harder to justify picking up just for scrapping.

What you prioritize depends on what you want to do. Building tends to require steel, wood, concrete. Robots, power armor, ballistic-gun mods tend to need lots of aluminum. Ballistic weave requires ballistic fiber. Nuclear material shows up for fusion generators, certain mods (reflex sights), what-not. Ceramic shows up in 'bots, generators, etc. And so forth.

[Rizzly]

When i have at least one of all junk types I just mark with magnifying glass the ones that aren't useful for my build, for example if I decide to not build settlements I won't even bother with most junk, but keep marked junk which I will eventually use for crafting weapons (e.g aluminum and adhesive)

The junk is divided in three categories: common, uncommon, rare. You might wanna mark all uncommon and rare junk and leave behind always wood, steel, concrete, plastic (keep plastic if you want to make Jets), cloth, rubber and leather.

These materials come inside other items like for example: antique globe , this item contains cork, plastic, screw. if you pick it for the screw you automatically have plastic 1x as well.

Two junk types of the common category which aren't really common are: bone and ceramic. I usually mark them but only pick the lightweight variants, skull, hand, etc. (ew)

As for rare and uncommon I always mark them and they are mostly lightweight except desk fans and biometric scanners.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Here are some things you should "Tag For Search" assuming you are dealing with limitations of Survival. IE, no Teleporting to access huge stockpiles of goods.

1. Screws. You always need Screws, even if you aren't doing a crafting build. I have to use tons to cannibalize new mods I find as loot.

2. Ballistic Fiber. Usually easy to notice anyway, as only a handful of items have it.

3. Copper (not so much anymore, now that wires are free, but still nice)

4. Fiber Optics. One of the rarest components, and usually stuck on something heavy.

5. Nuclear Material. Useful for lots of stuff, usually pretty light or bundled with other good materials.

6. Cork. For any Lightweight modding, this is usually what hamstrings you.

7. Aluminum (Aluminium) Used for just about every high-end upgrade out there. Gonna need lots.

8. Rubber. If you don't have a massive stockpile nearby from scrapping tires, this can be a real pain to get enough of.

[Powerkiter]

Awesome tips, thanks guys!

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Hell, I forgot Ceramic. I usually have everything that contains a ceramic component memorized though. If you can't be bothered to remember Coffee Cups, Red and Yellow Plates, Teacups and Teapots, Tag Ceramic

[Trehek]

If you build up settlements you'll likely need a ton of wood and steel. Although you get some when hunting for other materials, it's a good idea to pick up lightweight items for the two. Pencils, battered clipboards and wooden toy blocks are great for wood while forks, knives, scissors and cans are great for steel. Aluminum cans are also extremely useful.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by Trehek:

If you build up settlements you'll likely need a ton of wood and steel. Although you get some when hunting for other materials, it's a good idea to pick up lightweight items for the two. Pencils, battered clipboards and wooden toy blocks are great for wood while forks, knives, scissors and cans are great for steel. Aluminum cans are also extremely useful.

The best source of Wood is Moe Cronin in Diamond city. Fairly Cheap Shipments of 100 units, plus weightless until redeemed.

I personally try to avoid scrapping trees and stuff unless I have specific plans for the area it occupies.

[RealityQuotient]

I have a simple rule: If it isn't nailed down I take it, either for resale, personal use, or scrap. It makes for a few extra trips all the time, of course.

[7FOUR]

Pick up everything if you enjoy settlement building. Be choosy if you're only modding equipment or building robots. Hobo Misanthropus pretty much has the essentials covered. The more common resources will typically just fall into your lap.

If you feel like clearing out an entire location and want to make as few trips as possible: Wear power armor with legs modded for carry capacity and paint that increases strength (Military or BoS), build a robot optimized for carry capacity (excepting the use of sentrybot legs... they're too big for indoor navigation) and equipped with a torso mod for lockpicking or hacking (whichever you're weakest at). Eat some grilled radstag as well if you've got the meat, and use some buffout, bufftats, and alchohol if you're not worried about addiction. You should be able to haul pretty much everything out of the average location at once, maybe another trip or two for the super large ones.

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Originally posted by Trehek:

If you build up settlements you'll likely need a ton of wood and steel. Although you get some when hunting for other materials, it's a good idea to pick up lightweight items for the two. Pencils, battered clipboards and wooden toy blocks are great for wood while forks, knives, scissors and cans are great for steel. Aluminum cans are also extremely useful.

The best source of Wood is Moe Cronin in Diamond city. Fairly Cheap Shipments of 100 units, plus weightless until redeemed.

I personally try to avoid scrapping trees and stuff unless I have specific plans for the area it occupies.

In addition, figure out where the attacks commonly happen and take the trees/any cover from that area.
Raiders and gunners love to hide behind trees when attacking, and it can make it hard to kill them in the later game when they start attacking with missile launchers

[Relic62]

Something I noticed is that if you use barn walls they do not need steel thay are wood only, saves on the steel component, my only complaint is there are only 3 traders that sell wood where as all traders sell concrete.

Its not balanced enough as using concrete eats into your build limit very quickly whereas wood does not. A couple of more traders sellings wood would be nice.

Tenpines bluff is a typical settlement where there is hardly anything that you can scrap, and you are forced to buy wood and concrete in order to build there, unless you use console commands.

[NameBarrel]

I don't scavenge, make lots of water purifiers at your settlements (Sanctuary, Nordhagen beach, and Castle are good places) and sell the 200 or so water you get to the general stores in drumlin diner, bunker hill, and diamond city. Never had a problem with running low on scrap or ammo using this method

[Nite69]

Originally posted by Wheeler:

I don't scavenge, make lots of water purifiers at your settlements (Sanctuary, Nordhagen beach, and Castle are good places) and sell the 200 or so water you get to the general stores in drumlin diner, bunker hill, and diamond city. Never had a problem with running low on scrap or ammo using this method

+1 exactly what I do as well.