Workshop & Crafting Guide — Station Upgrades, Recipes, and Priority Order

The Workshop contains six distinct crafting stations, each serving a specific purpose. The Base Workbench is your starting station — it handles basic crafting and serves as the foundation that unlocks access to all other stations. The Weapon Bench (tiers 1 through 3) is where you craft and upgrade firearms from Tier I starter weapons up to Tier IV endgame options. The Gear Bench (tiers 1 through 3) produces shields, armor, backpacks, and protective equipment.

The Utility Station (tiers 1 through 3) crafts consumables, throwables, medical supplies, and augments like the Safekeeper. The Refiner (tiers 1 and 2) is arguably the most important station in the Workshop — it converts raw looted materials into refined components used by every other station. Finally, the Gunsmith (tiers 1 through 3) handles advanced weapon modification, allowing you to add and swap mods that alter weapon performance.

Each station tier unlocks new recipes and improves crafting efficiency. Upgrading a station requires specific materials and coins, and higher tiers have increasingly steep costs. This is why upgrade order matters enormously — investing in the wrong station early means weeks of inefficient crafting while you save up to fix the mistake.

• Base Workbench — Starting station, basic recipes, unlocks all other stations
• Weapon Bench (Tiers 1-3) — Craft and upgrade firearms through Tiers I-IV
• Gear Bench (Tiers 1-3) — Shields, armor, backpacks, protective equipment
• Utility Station (Tiers 1-3) — Consumables, throwables, meds, augments
• Refiner (Tiers 1-2) — Converts raw materials into refined crafting components
• Gunsmith (Tiers 1-3) — Advanced weapon mods and attachments

Your first Workshop upgrade should always be Refiner Tier 1. This unlocks the ability to convert raw looted materials like Metal Parts and Rubber Parts into Mechanical Components, which are required by nearly every meaningful recipe in the game. Without the Refiner, you'll accumulate piles of raw materials with no way to use them, which is the most common trap new players fall into.

After Refiner 1, upgrade the Weapon Bench to Tier 1. This lets you craft real weapons instead of relying on whatever you find in raids. The Bobcat, Renegade, and Ferro all become available at Weapon Bench 1, giving you reliable loadout options. Next, grab Gear Bench Tier 1 for shields and basic armor — survivability improves dramatically once you can craft a consistent shield every raid.

Your fourth upgrade should be Refiner Tier 2. This is the gateway to endgame crafting, unlocking recipes for Advanced Mechanical Components and Advanced Electrical Components — the materials required for Tier III and IV weapons, high-end gear, and Gunsmith modifications. After Refiner 2, continue upgrading Weapon Bench and Gear Bench in parallel based on what you need most, and invest in the Gunsmith once you have Tier III weapons worth modding.

Every item you loot in the Rust Belt falls into the crafting material hierarchy. At the bottom are raw materials: Metal Parts, Rubber Parts, Wires, Plastic, and Steel Springs. These drop abundantly from containers and are the foundation of all crafting. You'll need hundreds of these over your career, but they're easy to replenish on any raid.

Mid-tier materials include Mechanical Components, Electrical Components, and other refined products that come from the Refiner or from direct loot. These are the workhorses of most Weapon Bench and Gear Bench recipes. They're worth more than raw materials but still common enough that you shouldn't hoard them excessively — convert them into gear you'll actually use.

At the top of the hierarchy sit Advanced Mechanical Components and Advanced Electrical Components. These refined materials are produced at Refiner Tier 2 and are required for all high-end crafting. They sell for 1,750 coins each, making them tempting to sell — but resist this urge. You will need enormous quantities of both for Tier III and IV weapon crafts, endgame gear, and Gunsmith recipes. Selling them sets your progression back significantly.

• Metal Parts + Rubber Parts → Mechanical Components (Refiner Tier 1)
• Wires + Electrical Components → Advanced Electrical Components (Refiner Tier 2)
• Steel Springs + Mechanical Components → Advanced Mechanical Components (Refiner Tier 2)

The Refiner is the engine of the entire Workshop economy. At Tier 1, it converts pairs of raw materials into Mechanical Components — the most frequently required crafting ingredient in the game. A single Mechanical Component requires Metal Parts and Rubber Parts, both of which are among the most common items you'll find in any raid. Running the Refiner consistently is how you build a surplus of crafting stock.

Refiner Tier 2 unlocks the advanced conversion recipes that gate endgame progression. Advanced Electrical Components require Wires and Electrical Components, while Advanced Mechanical Components consume Steel Springs and Mechanical Components. These recipes are more expensive in terms of input materials but produce the components needed for every high-tier craft in the Workshop.

The Refiner received a significant rework in patch 1.15.0 that improved conversion rates across the board. Previously, the input-to-output ratio felt punishing — you'd burn through huge stockpiles of raw materials for modest returns. The reworked rates make the Refiner feel much more rewarding and reduced the total grind time for endgame materials by roughly 30 percent. Always keep your Refiner queue full.

Patch 1.16.0 introduced the Workshop Queue, a quality-of-life feature that lets you line up multiple crafting jobs at any station. Before this patch, you had to manually start each craft one at a time, which meant constant trips back to Speranza between raids to keep stations running. The queue system changed Workshop management from a tedious chore to a strategic planning exercise.

The optimal workflow is to queue a full batch of Refiner jobs after a series of raids, then queue weapon or gear crafts that consume the refined output. Time your queues so that materials finish refining just before you need them for the next batch of crafts. This pipeline approach minimizes idle station time and ensures you always have gear ready for your next session.

Each station has its own independent queue, so you can run all six stations simultaneously. Prioritize keeping the Refiner and your primary equipment station (usually Weapon Bench) active at all times. Utility Station crafts tend to be fast and cheap, so those can fill gaps. The Gunsmith queue is only worth running once you have Tier III or IV weapons that justify the mod investment.

The biggest mistake new players make is ignoring the Refiner and trying to craft directly with raw materials they can't use. You end up with a full stash of Metal Parts and Rubber Parts and no way to turn them into the Mechanical Components your Weapon Bench recipes actually require. Get Refiner 1 before anything else.

The second most common error is selling Advanced Mechanical Components and Advanced Electrical Components for their 1,750 coin value. It feels great in the short term, but these materials are the bottleneck for every endgame craft. You will regret selling them when you're trying to build a Tier IV Tempest and realize you need dozens of components that take multiple raids to accumulate.

Finally, don't neglect the Gear Bench in favor of pure weapon upgrades. A Tier III weapon means nothing if you die in two hits because you're wearing starter-tier armor. Balancing weapon and gear progression keeps your effective power level consistent and prevents frustrating deaths where your gun was amazing but your shield popped instantly.