Fallout 76: Find bolts, ballistic fibers & more

Of course, you can also find armor, weapons and useful chems in the game if you have a lot of patience and trust in chance. If you don't feel like it or don't have much time, you can't avoid crafting in Fallout 76 to turn the necessary resources like screws, ballistic fibers and plants into helpful items.

Upgraded weapons and improved armor will make the endgame much easier, as will homemade stimpaks and buff food.

Mark your missing resources in the crafting station.

How to make the search for materials easier

With the huge amount of items you can pick up in Fallout 76, it's easy to lose track of exactly which useful scrap is in which item. Especially if you're specifically looking for a certain resource, it's worth using a trick that the developers have built into the game.

Go to the crafting station of your choice, for example the weapon crafting bench. If you can craft a weapon, the small list to the right of the weapon name will tell you. If the weapon is grayed out, you still lack resources. Instead of tediously rummaging around, simply click on "Mark for search" in the selection bar at the bottom of the screen. This will mark missing resources with a magnifying glass icon.

Each time you come across items that contain the missing resource while searching the game environment, you'll see the magnifying glass mark next to their name. This way you can tell at a glance if an item is worth taking!

Pro tip: If you're looking for common, frequently used resources, use the crafting workbench. In the "Bulk" tab, you can quickly find all materials from aluminum to screws to steel.

Here you can find useful plants

For the vegetable patch in your own C.A.M.P. and fresh buff food, you naturally lack the necessary plants, especially at the beginning of the game. For this, preferably look around on farms such as the Wixon (pumpkin) or Silva (corn) estates.

Morgantown Airport has a public garden in the northwest area of the airport, where you can pick up a wide selection of basic plants. Alternatively, check out Flatwoods near the Red Rocket gas station, and Lewis & Sons Farm Supplies for crops (corn and melon).

Pro tip: If you come across unfamiliar plants in the wild, take at least one of them with you, as you'll also get new cooking recipes.

In the Early Game, the Community Garden in Morgantown Airport is a good place to find plants.

Where to find screws and springs

Screws are mainly needed for modifying armor and weapons as well as for armor production - and in large quantities. If you want to create the excavator power armor, you will also need a mountain of feathers.

You can getfeathers from the following items:

  • Alarm clock
  • Cameras
  • Storm lighters
  • Typewriters
  • Toasters
  • Pocket watches
  • Life rings
  • Handcuffs
  • Clipboards

Screws you get from

  • a globe
  • Typewriters
  • Pepper mills
  • Toy cars
  • Fans
  • Handcuffs
  • Hotplates
  • Hubcaps
  • Pliers

Especially in office environments you will find many items containing both materials (clipboards, typewriters, desk fans, globes).
Good places to collect include the Charleston Herald building, Sugar Grove, the National Astronomy Radio Research Center, and other buildings with many office units; otherwise, workshops and industrial buildings are also helpful.

Typewriters are ideal if you are looking for springs and screws.

Here you can find Chems

First aid boxes and chem boxes can be found in all kinds of buildings, you can recognize them by their eye-catching appearance - either white with green print (first aid) or yellow (chem boxes). Behind intact mirrors in bathrooms, toilets and company washrooms or in doctor's bags you can also find the sought-after Chems like Stimpaks or Buff Drugs.

The best pickings for anything medical, however, are in clinic environments like the medic section of the responder warehouse in Morgantown Airport, AVR Medical Center in Charleston, Arktos Pharma and Watoga Emergency Systems. Raider camps also provide a good bycatch of Chems and Stims like Pycho, Buff-Out and the like, loot the bodies there especially!

By the lockers at Camp McClintlock, we find an army ammo pouch.

Collect ballistic fibers effectively

So far, there are only two reliable sources of ballistic fibers in Fallout 76: Either you collect military tape or army ammo pouches. Both items aren't exactly common in the game world, but you have a good chance of finding them in military environments.

Look for them at Camp McClintlock near Flatwoods, Camp Venture in the swamp, Fort Defiance near Watoga, and the smaller Brotherhood camps in Cranberry Swamp. You can also pick up the two items at the Monongah Nuclear Power Plant and the National Astronomy Radio Research Center.

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