Do I need to break down my junk into components before I store in my workshop? Is there a way to break down all junk in one go?

I spent ages yesterday breaking down various junk items before storing them, having to drop them on the floor and then hover over and breakdown. There MUST be a quicker way?

No, you don't need to do that. As soon as you place junk in your workshop, it automatically counts as whatever materials it contains.

So put a pack of cigs in the workshop and whenever you want to build something that requires paper, you automatically have the paper available.

I thought this should be the case, but it didn't seem to 'tally' with what I was placing in there!

Man, I feel like an idiot now (almost as much as when I spent half an hour figuring out how to place power lines, not spotting the button command infront of me...)

I wish I knew how it determined what items to destroy.... if you're carrying the items on your person, you'll get a note that, say, a Boston Bugle paper was destroyed to make the Cloth you used to make a sleeping bag. While it's all "junk", there is some "junk" that I might like to use for decoration... desktop picture frames, globes, etc. I keep thinking I'm going to go into the massive junk listing in the workshop and pull out those junk items that I might want to use for decoration one day.

I'm also not 100% sure how the workbench treats weapons and armor. You can Scrap weapons and armor at their respective crafting tables, but I don't recall trying to do it fro the main workbench, nor am I sure whether the settlement will scrap weapons and armor automatically to get what it needs.

Since there's a perk that improves the results of weapon/armor scrapping, it may be independent of the workshop auto-scrapping junk. I know that you can leave Aid items in the workshop and then use them at, say, a Chemistry table (since they can be ingredients in other things). Pretty sure weapons and armor, though, cannot be accessed from workbenches at different settlements, even if connected by Supply Chains, which would suggest that they are not considered potential "ingredients" to be scrapped as needed for materials.

There is a glitch with the auto scrap feature of the workbench storage.

When things are auto scrapped (out of your inventory or the workbench storage), the excess parts go to the workbench storage but do NOT show up in the storage display lists until you enter and exit the workshop mode. It appears that the display lists have to be "refreshed" but the materials ARE available to be used by any crafting station or in building mode so the "glitch" only effects what you see in the lists and cannot cause any actual material shortage (unless you are trying to actually remove the material from the workbench inventory).

Only actual JUNK items will be auto scrapped by workstation crafting / building actions. You have to manually scrap any other items and some items (clothing and mods) can only be scrapped by dropping them on the ground inside the settlement area, switching to build mode and scrapping by pointing at the item.

Note that every intact (NON-junk) item in your Workshop storage counts against your settlement size, so you can free up settlement building space by manually scrapping items (by dropping on the ground) that were stored in the Workbench. While I have not tested this myself, others have speculated that this method could potentially allow you continually free up space at any settlement (put junk in Workstation, pull it out and manually scrap it).

Above is incorrect. You need store non-junk items in workbench storage and then remove them and drop them on the ground. You can then scrap what you don't want to keep or store what you do want back in the workbench. Both actions free up space but the key is that the item needs to have been stored in the workbench storage at some point.

If you don't have the Junk items you want to keep on your person or stored in the workshop, they won't be auto-selected for break down.

I build a footlocker next to the workshop stand in each of my settlements for storing Junk I want to keep. I stop there first, store the good Junk, then "store all" in the workshop. Then pick the good junk back up to sell or decorate with or whatever.

So items stored in the workshop use up the total size of the settlement? I did not know that. What about items stored in a chest or other container?

I don't understand what BrotherGrimm is saying about freeing up space. Can you explain a bit more? What does storing something first and then taking it out have to do with anything? Sorry I am just dumb ;D

When you enter the workshop building mode, there is a bar in the upper right corner that fills up as you build stuff at a settlement. At some point it gets so full, you can no longer create or place any more items (note that storing or scrapping items does not seem to ever be disabled no matter what the bar shows....only placing built items gets turned off).

You can make the bar empty itself (free up space) by performing the method I described.

• Put items (not junk) in the workbench storage.
• Pull them out to your inventory.
• Drop them on the ground.
• Enter settlement build mode.
• Store the items you want (or scrap the ones you want materials from). This step will make the bar decrease.

Here is the video I watched that showed this method in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TszQTVO6KpU

cool, thanks for the explanation. I understand now.

Has anyone figured out if this way of decreasing the bar shows negative effects on performance on consoles?

I imagine at some point that it will, seeing as how the cap is there specifically to prevent performance issues.

But it does appear to work. But use it soon, because I'd bet on it being patched in the near future.