Fallout Shelter Update 1.4 Guide: Where to find junk and how to craft legendary weapons and outfits

Fallout Shelter Crafting Tips — Helpful pop-ups in Fallout Shelter are designed to introduce new players to the mechanics

Fallout Shelter for iOS and Android devices has recently been updated to version 1.4, adding some welcome, fresh changes to the enjoyable vault-management simulator, with many of the new features clearly inspired by the crafting and junk mechanics in Bethesda's fiercely popular action-RPG sequel Fallout 4.

Here is the full rundown of the additions in update 1.4 from the Google Play Store description:

- Turn worthless junk into useful items! Introducing... crafting!

- New Rooms! Build the new Weapon and Armor crafting rooms.

- Lunchboxes now contain a bonus 5th card – Junk!

- Build the new Barbershop and customize the look of any Dweller.

- New Outfits and Weapons straight from Fallout 4 are now in Lunchboxes, and available to craft.

- New Dogs and Cats, and introducing... Parrots! Plus, new pet bonuses!

- Time of day now properly reflected.

With new weapons to build, customisable outfits for your dweller population and even a quaint day and night cycle that adds neat aesthetic changes to your vault depending on when you boot up the game, lapsed or beginning overseers may find themselves returning to their vaults only to be overwhelmed by the numerous changes.

Here is the IBTimes UK guide to these features, helping you to continue guiding your vault's population to salvation in the post-apocalyptic wastes in Fallout Shelter:

How to build crafting rooms and create new weapons and outfits

Whether you are a new player or a vault veteran, there are two crafting rooms that are now available in the charmingly addictive sim that will help you to kit out your dwellers with heavy firepower or hefty armour. To access these newly introduced rooms in your expandable vault, download the 1.4 update version and follow these steps:

Tap the hammer icon in the top right of your screen to bring up the build menu.
Select either the weapon or outfit workshop and find a large three-square plot in which to place your new room.
Assign any single dweller to the room and tap the craft icon (represented by the spanner and screwdriver at the bottom of the screen.
You will see a list of all of the craft-able items (including exclusive Fallout 4 items only obtainable by crafting!), as well as the junk you will need to make each specific weapon/outfit.
Some of the items will be unavailable at first as you may not have the correct junk in your inventory, have not yet collected the corresponding recipe or have not fully upgraded the room to allow the crafting of rare or legendary items (see the following sections).
Once you have selected the item you want to craft, you will need to assign some workers to get the job done.
Choose your assigned dwellers carefully! Each item has a particular 'SPECIAL' attribute and assigning workers with the best stats in the corresponding attribute will speed up the crafting process. Having more workers speeds up the process, so feel free to add up to six if you don't want to wait too long.
Wait patiently and you will eventually have successfully crafted your first item!

Fallout Shelter Crafting — Have you heard the one about santa, the wrestler and a chap in power armour?

So with our introduction to crafting out of the way, here are the two crafting rooms in a little bit more detail:

Weapon Workshop

Build requirements: 22 dwellers (Legendary items available after 75 dwellers)
Exclusive items: Pipe Pistol, Pipe Rifle, Institute Rifle, Junk Jet (more after upgrades)

Outfit Workshop

Build requirements: 32 dwellers (Legendary items available after 90 dwellers)
Exclusive items: Brotherhood of Steel uniform, Flight Suit, Treasure Hunter Gear, Institute Jumper, Baseball Uniform, Bounty Hunter Gear, Lifeguard Outfit, Sturdy Metal Armour, Survivor Armour (more after upgrades)

Where to find junk and legendary recipes

So, you have your favourite vault dwellers kitted out with new weapons and gear, but they just are not 'legendary' enough right?

To get your hands on the best equipment after maxing out your crafting rooms (done by tapping the up arrow in the top right when you have a room selected and the correct dweller total) you will need two things: junk and recipes.

Junk

While unfortunately you cannot currently scrap your current weapon/outfit haul for junk parts like in Fallout 4 (maybe one for update 1.5?), there are several ways you can collect the odd bits and bobs required to craft new stuff.

The most common way of collecting junk is from sending your dwellers out into the wilderness of the wasteland by dragging them outside, just make sure you have given them enough weaponry, armour, Stimpacks and Radaways before sending them out. The best dwellers to send are those with high 'SPECIAL' stats, with Luck in particular helping increase the quantity of junk items collected on and Endurance also allowing your chosen dweller to travel for longer without dying (the game hints that the best items are deep into the wasteland).

The other way takes slightly more work as there is now a fifth card in the collectable lunchboxes. While you can buy these with in-app purchases, if you are a stoically free-to-play player there are optional objectives that yield the valuable packs as well.

Recipes

Unfortunately your hoard of junk will mean nothing if your dwellers do not know how to put it all together, thankfully the crafting recipes are your ticket to unlocking the absolute best weapons and outfits.

While you can technically collect recipes off of the corpses of attacking raiders after a successful defense, the drop rate is very low. The easiest method, much like junk, is those daring wasteland trips. While you will likely find an array of recipes for rare items, what you really want is the yellow legendary ones like the beauty I managed to snaffle this afternoon (shown in the image below).

Fallout Shelter Legendary Recipe — This man is now my new favourite dweller

Character Customisation

While it definitely does not have the same practical advantages of crafting, the new barbershop room is a great way to mould your vault into a paradise of pointy elf ears and dodgy haircuts.

It costs 10,000 caps to build and another 50,000 caps to fully upgrade for facial customisation, but once set up, simply assign a slovenly looking dweller and tinker away. Just make sure you pick the right outfit to go with that bright green mullet and clown nose okay?