Okay so I've looked everywhere and keep seeing the same thing: if you need a material for crafting it will automatically break down for you. Okay fine, this might work for building a table or something but it doesn't work that way for modding weapons or armor. At least not in any way I can tell. I need 1 adhesive for an armor mod and I have 1 roll of duct tape in my storage but nothing happens. The adhesive requirement just stays blanked out. I ended up dropping it and scrapping it that way. Am I missing something with scrapping components for weapon and armor mods? Do I need a special bench to let me manually scrap items?

And while I'm at it: does playing the radio affect stealth? I know it sound stupid but I could've swore I saw somewhere that the radio affected stealth in FO3.

I've found that if i use the workbench to store items, rather than just any container i can skip the break down step and just upgrade armor and weapons.