Tip Guide 3: Low Level Crafting

Weapons Workbench

Crafting benches are accessible from early in the game. The Moonshiner's Shack just south of the vault has a weapon workbench and a cooking station. The little unmarked observation tower southeast of the vault (just above the cow's backside on the Pip-Boy map) has a cooking station. Gilman Lumber Mill has a tinker's bench. Wixon Homestead has a weapon bench, an armor bench, and a tinker's bench, and the Isolated Cabin has a weapon bench and cooking station. After crossing the covered bridge next to the Wayward, the Overseer's CAMP has weapon and armor benches, as well as a cooking station. 

Flatwoods has several workbenches arrayed along the main street. After crossing under the overpass just south of the Green Country Lodge, the second house on the right has a weapons bench, the third house on the right has a tinker's bench (hidden around back and below the deck), the church on the right has a chemistry bench, and the next house on the right has an armor bench. A few steps further to the southwest and you have two cooking stations out in the open on the left side. There is also a chemistry bench in the Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center, and a tinker's bench behind the Red Rocket filling station.

At the earliest levels, the important resources for crafting are adhesive, leather, steel, screws, springs, gears, and oil. A full set of Level 1 light leather armor (five pieces) will cost 18 steel, 9 leather, and 7 cloth. Leather is probably the limiting resource here, but can come from scrapping certain items (such as baseball gloves or stuffed animals) and from animal pelts (e.g. Radstag) or hide bundles. The dead Brahmin outside the Moonshiner's Shack is one source, as is the Radstag hanging near the cooking station there. 

Pipe Pistols require adhesive, gears, oil, screws, springs, and steel, although you're likely to find these weapons as random drops from creatures you kill, especially Scorched. Scrapping excess weapons will produce some of the needed materials for crafting and modding of other weapons. Adhesive is the limiting resource here. It can be acquired from scrapping Wonderglue, Duct Tape, Handmade Glue, or Vegetable Starch. It is a relatively rare resource in the early game but critical when crafting mods for armor or weapons, or when repairing them. That means you'll need to be selective about how many guns or armor pieces you try to mod, and how often you repair damaged items.  

Corn Garden Next to the Wayward

Adhesive can be created at a cooking station. It requires mutfruit, corn, tatoes, and Purified Water (another limited resource in the early game). These are not easy to obtain in the area between Vault 76 and the Wayward. I did find one mutfruit plant about halfway down the hill between the Moonshiner's Shack and Gilman Lumber Mill near a rocky overlook, but that's about it.

Once at the Wayward, there is a large garden of corn right next to the building. Because of my role-play approach, my character has to go inside the Wayward and buy something worth 6-8 caps for each ear of corn taken to simulate purchasing the corn. Mutfruit can be found in the community garden near the Red Rocket in Flatwoods, and tatoes can be found in the area between the river and the houses where the wild Brahmin tend to roam. There aren't many of these plants around, though, so the best bet is to build a camp and plant as many of them as you can find. Then, harvest and plant some more until you have maybe 10 of each type.

Next, go to a cooking station and find the Vegetable Starch option under Utility. Vegetable Starch becomes excess adhesive when scrapped or used in crafting. Each unit of Vegetable Starch becomes two units of Excess Adhesive.

Vegetable Starch Requirements - 2 Mutfruit, 2 Corn, 2 Tatoes, 1 Purified Water = 2 Excess Adhesive.

Purified Water can sometimes be found while exploring the Wasteland, such as in Overseer caches, but more often it is received as a reward for completing quests. That means you should avoid drinking it if you possibly can. Drink boiled water instead, which you can make easily with dirty water, wood, and a cooking station. Settling near a water source during the early game makes acquiring boiled water easier.

Water Purifier and a Small and Medium Generator to Power It

You can create your own Purified Water once you know how to build a Water Purifier. The easiest way to get this knowledge is to take over a Workshop. Gorge Junkyard to the north of the Wayward is the closest and probably best location for claiming your first workshop, but you will need to have a minimum of 25 caps to take it over. You can earn caps by selling things to Duchess at the Wayward, such as Soot Flower or other foods that you collect in the forest. Don't sell guns or armor pieces unless they are a type you don't think you will ever want to use. Scrap these items instead so you have a chance to learn more mods. These mods are worth much more than a few caps. 

There is quite a lot of useful junk to be found at Gorge Junkyard, and there are a number of raw resources that can be extracted as well, including black titanium, concrete, and junk. Once you are able to build a Water Purifier and one or more generators to power it, you can make your own Purified Water and life gets easier. The Green Thumb perk card can dramatically improve your crafting of adhesive. This card doubles the harvest from any plant resource. So with five mutfruit plants, five corn stalks, and five tatoes, you can harvest enough to make five Vegetable Starch, where otherwise it would take ten of each. Five Vegetable Starch will scrap into 10 adhesive.

Finally, think carefully about how much adhesive you spend on modding armor in particular. If you have a limited supply, it might be best to improve only a couple of armor pieces. The reason is that the base armor (or weapon) that you can craft at Level 5 is better than the base armor at Level 1, and it improves again at Level 10, and 15, and every five levels up to Level 50. In the early game, level progression will be pretty fast, so you could end up constantly running out of adhesive if you try to mod up all five armor pieces at each level, along with keeping your guns modded and repaired. I would try to always hold three adhesive in reserve for emergency repairs so that you never run out when you desperately need it. You can purchase repair kits from the atomic shop, but I don't allow my role-playing character to use them.