Fallout 76 Crafting Guide – How to Craft, Crafting Stations, Tips and Tricks

In this Fallout 76 Crafting Guide, we will guide you on one of the most important mechanics of Fallout 76 which is Crafting. You will use Crafting a lot in the game to create items and consumables for yourself such as armor, ammo, beverages, and food. You cannot always rely on things found in the wastelands or the merchants as it is not a very cost-effective method to obtain items in the game.

We have curated this Fallout 76 Crafting Guide in which we have detailed the complete process of crafting in Fallout 76 and how it works. We will detail different types of crafting stations that are present in the game and how you can use them. We will also detail whether you can craft the said items in your C.A.M.P. or not which is yet another very useful mechanic of the game.

Crafting Guide – Fallout 76

Our Fallout 76 Crafting Guide details everything that you need to know about Crafting in Fallout 76.

Crafting Stations and Workbenches Types

The first thing you must understand before you start crafting is what are the different types of Crafting Stations and Workbenches available in the game and how you can use them. To get started, there are eight different types of Crafting Stations and Workbenches in the game. Each one will allow you to craft unique items so if you want to craft a certain item, you will need to find the specific Crafting Station or Workbench that allows crafting that specific item.

These are spread across various locations in the whole game while you can also make some of them in your C.A.M.P. Some of these workbenches and crafting stations also have different variants. We have detailed all of them below for your reference.

Water Pump

Water Pumps allow you to get a fresh supply of water. Well technically it is not fresh but it is the best quality of water that you can find easily in most places. The water you get from Water Pumps will still give you a little bit of radiation. These are found in most towns. This is a good source of water but don’t drink it directly after obtaining it from a water pump.

You can also build water pumps in your C.A.M.P. You cannot craft or scrap items here. It is just a source of water that you can collect to boil later at a Cooking Station. Drinking un-boiled water can give you dysentery and you do not want that.

Cooking Station

Cooking Stations are used to craft or cook meals. There are tons of cooking stations found in the map in almost every location. They range from large campfires with pots to smaller pots on fires to even kitchen stoves. They may differ in appearance but their purpose remains the same. You can cook meals, and beverages, or boil water at such Cooking Stations.

To cook meals, you will need recipes that are found around the map. You cannot scrap items at the Cooking Station. These can also be built in your C.A.M.P. and it has four different variants to choose from. Cooked food and boiled water will help you survive in the wastelands and they are more nutritious than food and water found in the wild.

Armor Workbench

Armor Workbenches allow you to build different armor components for your body. They range from limbs, arms, heads, and torso armor pieces. The quality and level of the armor built at these workbenches depend on your level and skill. A higher skill level will ensure that you can build the best armor around. These workbenches also allow you to repair or modify your armor or stitch costumes, outfits, and more.

You can also build them in your C.A.M.P. if you have their plans. Along with crafting, Armor Workbenches also allow you to scrap items or repair and modify them. You will find them easily in all major locations around the map although they are not as common as water pumps or cooking stations.

Weapons Workbench

Weapons Workbench allows you to craft and repair different types of weapons for use in the game. You must have the required parts to craft weapons or repair them. The weapons you can build here range from baseball bats to mini-nuke launchers. You can also apply different mods to make weapons even better at these Weapons Workbenches.

You will find them mostly in the same places where Armor Workbenches are located although some might be present alone in a location. You can craft, repair, modify, and scrap items here. You will need mods or plans to build weapons here. If you own the plans for Weapons Workbench, you can build 2 different variants in your own C.A.M.P. as well.

Tinker’s Workbench

Tinker’s Workbench allows you to craft ammunition, grenades, mines, and any sort of similar items. Buying ammo from vendors will be very expensive in the long run and you do not have access to vendors all the time as well. This is where these Tinker’s Workbenches come in handy, allowing you to craft ammunition of any sort on the go. You will definitely need resources for doing so but these allow you to scrap items so that is not a big problem.

In the long run, crafting your ammo is very cheap and more useful. Save those caps for something more useful and craft your own ammo. You will find plenty of useless items on your journey, scrap them all, and craft your own ammo. You can also build Tinker’s Workbench in your C.A.M.P. if you have found its plan.

Chemistry Station

Chemistry Station allows you to craft your own chems, Flamer Fuel, and other useful ingredients such as gunpowder which is used to craft ammo and smelted ore for metal scrap. Basically, the Chemistry Stations are used for creating items that are required for other crafting projects and some of the items created here can also be consumed by you such as Chems. If you craft your ammo yourself, you will need access to a Chemistry Station because you can create gunpowder here which is used at the Tinker’s Station for ammo.

You can create one at your C.A.M.P. if you own its plans. There are two variants to choose from. For crafting items here, you will first need to find their recipes. You can smelt down items here to get some raw materials which are later used for crafting mods and other structures. You can also scrap items here.

Power Armor Station

Power Armor Stations allow you to add different limb appendages, torso, and helmets to your Power Armor. You cannot use Power Armor until you have leveled up enough. They also allow you to mod each piece of the power armor using different mods that you craft or find in the world. You will need Power Armor Stations late in the game.

There are two different variants available for Power Armor Stations and you can build them in your C.A.M.P. by finding their plans. Also, for crafting items here, you will need to find their plans and mods first. You can also scrap items here in addition to crafting them. Power Armor is the best protective armor in Fallout 76.

Workshop Workbench

Workshop Workbenches are used to craft large-scale structures to defend and mine resources. You must pay some caps to claim one for yourself. If one is owned by someone else, you will need to fight others for it. Claiming one for yourself will allow you to mine rare resources in the Workshop Workbench’s range and other defenses around it.

You cannot build them in your own C.A.M.P. although you can craft, scrap, modify and repairs items here when you claim one for yourself. These are Public Workshops and anyone can take over them if they want too so you should be ready to defend it from attacks.

Interacting with Crafting Stations and Workbenches

When you interact with a Crafting Station or Workbench, you will be presented with a menu that will represent you with some options of what you can do with that specific Crafting Station or Workbench. We have detailed these options below. Some of the workbenches will not have certain options depending on their type.

Craft

This option is used to craft different items and to check the components required for them along with their description and other information.

Modify

In this menu, you will be given the option to choose from modifying different items in the workbench or Crafting Station. You can press X or Square to switch between Crafting and Modifying.

Instruction Types

To craft items, you will first need to find the specific types of instructions that will guide you on what needs to be done to craft that particular item. There are different types of instructions available in Fallout 76. We have detailed them below.

Recipes

Recipes will add consumables, Chems, and Ammo to your crafting list. They are used for crafting different Cooking and Chemistry items. You will find them scattered around the map in containers or even out in the open. They look like normal cookbooks. For Chem Recipes, you can try looking at medical shops and hospitals while food and drink recipes are found in cafes, restaurants, and kitchens.

Plans

Plans are instructions for Combat Clothing, Weapons, and other Construction items. You will need them for Armor, Weapons, Power Armor, C.A.M.P and Workshop items. They look like a collection of different pages. They could be found anywhere on the map in containers or in the open but are mostly found in military establishments, bunkers, garages, or workshops.

Mods

Mods allow you to craft enhancements for both your armor and weapons, You can tailor them according to your liking. You will need them to mod Armor, Weapons, and Power Weapons according to your liking. Mods look like long wooden boxes and a gear symbol on them.

You will find them in containers or around the map in the open. The most common locations to find Mods are weapon caches, military installations, and mechanic’s garages. Any sort of technical place will be a good place to look for them.

Crafting Components

To craft any sort of item in the game, you will need to find crafting components for each item. They will be unique for each item and you will need to check each item’s recipe, plan or mod to see the requirements for their crafting. There are five different types of crafting components in the game and we have detailed them below.

Junk Items

The most common items that you will find scattered around in wastelands are Junk Items. Keep collecting any sort of stuff that you find in the world such as bottles, board games, empty canisters, animal hides or circuit boards, and items that do not fall in any other category. Your Pip Boy will automatically sort all useless items in the Junk tab.

You can scrap them later at workbenches to get really useful materials out of them which are later used for crafting different useful items in the game. Collect whatever you see in the game and then check the Junk section of your inventory to see all Junk Items in your inventory. Scrap them and you will get useful crafting materials out of them.

Non-Junk Items

These items can be used by you but could be useless now because they are low-powered or their level is too low to be any good to you. These could be lower-level guns, armor pieces, or even broken items such as broken armor pieces or weapons. Scrap them and you will get some useful crafting items from them. They will not be put in a separate tab so you will need to choose them manually and then scrap them at your own will.

Container-Looted Items

These items are found in different containers littered around the wastelands. Whenever you find a container, make sure that you look at it and you will find a lot of useful items in it such as junk, ammo, recipes, plans, mods, weapons, or even armor. Use whatever is useful for you and scrap anything extra here for valuable components. All in-game containers are replenished after a day.

Harvest and Corpse-Looted Items

Whenever you kill a creature or an enemy, make sure that you have their bodies. You can even harvest different plants found in the game as they are used for crafting in the game. There are fungus, flowers, crops, tree barks and even some carnivorous plants in West Virginia just waiting to be harvested.

Harvesting animals will give you hides, limbs, teeth, or meat which can be used later for different purposes. Never leave your kills as they are, always loot or harvest them. Human or robot enemies will give you useful items as well.

Deposits and Veins

These are the best sources for various raw materials and natural resources found in the game. You will often come across ground depressions which are deposits or veins of ore or acid in the land that will provide you with natural resources in the game.

You can manually harvest these resources or build a resource generator that automatically mines them. It does not work on veins so they still require manual. Claiming workshops is the best possible way to acquire these resources automatically.

Enhancing Crafting

There are different methods to increase your crafting skill and capability in Fallout 76. You can choose certain perks or use different magazines that will help you to increase the effectiveness of your crafting or give you different types of special boosts in the game depending on the perks and magazines that you opt for.

Tips and Tricks

• If you require a certain crafting component for completing a project and you do not have the required number in your inventory, that specific item will be grayed out in the inventory. To make their search easier, you can use the ‘Tag for Search’ feature. Go to the component, tag them and a magnifying glass will appear next to the component. Now when you look for items in the world, junk items containing that specific component will have a magnifying glass icon with them so you can quickly find them.
• You do not necessarily have to convert all junk into crafting components before crafting an item. If you lack certain components but have a junk item that contains that specific component, the game will automatically scrap that item for the component and you will not need to manually scrap all your junk.
• The crafted food and items may yet increase your radiation levels. You can use a RadAway to clear them all up.
• For your primary weapons, you must equip them with a barrel, grip, muzzle, sight, and receiver to make them more effective and allow you to use them according to the situations arising in the game.
• Recipes and Plans must be read before they are added to your crafting lists. Simply collecting them is not enough. Once you have collected a Recipe or a Plan, open your inventory, go to Notes, and read them to add them to your crafting options. Mods do not need to be read. You can apply them directly to your weapons or armor.
• Any crafted food will spoil after some time. Make sure that if you are crafting some extra snacks for the road, you do not leave them there for too long and consume them after a certain time. Leaving them for too long with spoil them and they will do more harm than good.

For additional Fallout 76 guides, make sure to check out our Antibiotics Guide, Deathclaw Eggs Farming Guide, Fact Finder .44 Pistol Guide, Wastelanders Romance Guide, Wastelanders Allies Location Guide, Wastelanders Hunter for Hire Guide, Wastelanders Strength in Numbers Quest Guide, Weapons Guide, Perks and Special Attributes Guide, Workshops Guide, Power Armor Guide, Camping Guide, Apparel Guide, Best Characters Build Guide, Aid Items Guide, Main Quests Guide Part 2, Main Quests Guide Part 1, Chemistry Guide, Cooking Guide, Event Quests Guide, Daily Drop and Repeatable Quests Guide, Nukes Guide, Diseases and Mutations Guide, Miscellaneous Quests Guide, Magazines Guide, BobbleHeads Guide, Power Armor Locations Guide, Combat Guide, Side Quests Guide, Beginner’s Guide, Aluminum Farming Guide, Final Word Weapon Guide, Weapons and Armor Mod Guides, and 8 Basic Steps After Setting Out the Vault in Fallout 76 Guide.

This concludes our Fallout 76 Crafting Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below.