Fallout 4: weapon crafting guide

How to build the most lethal weapons in Fallout 4 and choose the right Perks for gun nuts.

Fallout 4's weapon crafting is as complicated as you want it to be.

You can increase a gun's magazine size and up its damage easily enough if that's all you need. But you can also go a lot further, modding the range, increasing critical strikes, changing the type of damage, fitting a nasty blade on the front and even renaming it. So let's get started.

Weapons Workbenches are easy to use. You'll find them in settlements such as Sanctuary as well as weapons stores in cities and in other locations like military bases.

Press X to Craft when you're standing in front of a Weapons Workbench. Highlight a weapon in the Inventory and you'll see all the Mod Slots. Now highlight a Mod Slot to see your Mod options for that slot.

Look at the screen above and you'll see weapon stats on the left, a description of the mod and the changes it makes to your weapon in the middle, as well as the junk required to make the modification. On the right is indication of any specific Perks or skill requirement.

Let's take a look at the list of Mod Slots and what modding that part of the weapon will do. This is a general overview, as each weapon has it's own individual buffs and nerfs.

Mod Slots

• Receiver changes damage, critical shot damage, rate of fire and armour penetration.
• Barrel changes mainly adjust accuracy and a little bit of range, as well as improved hip fire and recoil.
• Grips improve accuracy.
• Stocks on rifles are all about better recoil and aim.
• Magazines are primarily about capacity but also speed of reloads.
• Capicitors are the most important part of a laser weapon. The make big changes to damage, improved critical hits, add burning damage, and change the ammo capacity.
• Sights will change accuracy and your focus on a target. Particularly useful for rifles and sniper rifles.
• Muzzles are about improving per-shot recoil at the cost of decreasing range. This is also for silencers for those that like to sneak. This is also where you add a pointy bit for stabbing people.

Weapon stats

Cycle through the different mods and keep an eye on how the stats change.

Obviously Damage is the most important and some modifications can drastically reduce the amount of damage a weapon does. You want that number to go up whenever possible.

The other three important stats to keep an eye on Fire Rate, Range and Accuracy, for self-explanatory reasons. Weight and Value make very little difference to anything, to be honest.

The short description of the mod can be a lot more useful than the change in stats. Some descriptions are general, but some can be very specific such as adding burn damage on top of normal damage. One mod can have a number of big changes. For example: adding a Long Light Barrel to a sniper rifle will improve range, sighted accuracy and reduce recoil, at the cost of reduced hip-fire accuracy.

You'll also see the scrap items you need to make these modifications and this is where you heart will sink a little bit. For the better mods you're going to need a lot of junk, including but not limited to; springs, screws, adhesive, steel, aluminium, copper, oil, circuity, rubber and nuclear material.

Where to find weapon mod junk

Finding the junk items to mod weapons is easier than it first seems. First up, press the Scrap button on all the guns you're carrying that you don't need. This will give you plenty of steel and plastic.

Now you need to Scrap items in the world. Just like base building, you need to go to the Workbench and use it, after which you can wander around a settlement and Scrap everything you see. All those screws and springs you need can be found by scrapping lamps, sofas, chairs, tyres and all the regular junk lying around. Scrapping it automatically sends it to the workbench and crafting bench inventory. Spend a good ten minutes scrapping everything in site.

Best Perks for weapon crafting

On the far right of the screen you'll see if the mod you want requires an increase in your base Science skill or a specific Perk.

Some weapon mods will only open up with a higher Science skill so there may be a limit to what you can build. There are also a few Perks that help crafting lethal weapons much easier and give you more options.

Gun Nut gives you access to rank 2, 3 and 4 mods and requires Intelligence of at least 3. It's a great Perk and you should at least get this at rank 2 as part of your general character build out.

Scrapper lets you salvage uncommon components - screws, copper, aluminium, and later nuclear material and fibreoptics. All of these are essential for some of the deadliest weapons mods.

Blacksmith is for the fighter. Ranking up will give you access to brutal melee weapon mods.

Science is perhaps the best choice if you're using laser weapons. This Perk improves all high-tech modding (armour, explosives and weapons) so it's valuable across the crafting tables.

Now go back to the weapons bench and you should have enough scrap to add at least one or two decent mods to a weapon. Try it out on something you use a lot and have plenty of ammo for. A 10mm pistol is a firm favourite. Up the ammo capacity and damage and you'll want to keep it by your side for a while. Never rush modding, and always check the stats to make sure a mod doesn't shave a little off the Damage.

Once you've got the basics worked out you're good to go. Later in the game you'll probably begin crafting more ambitious weapons, with some fairly ridiculous modifications. Who doesn't want to attach a multiple rotating bayonets to a minigun? And don't neglect melee weapons. A baseball bat with barbed wire will crush heads just as effectively as a sniper rifle from 500 yards.

Finally, you can give you freshly minted gun a new name. Like a barbarian names his sword. Fantastic.

Have fun building lethal weapons, you little psychopaths!

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