In a post-apocalyptic world, a change in currency is a natural expectation. Bottle caps, however, are not where most people might go with this and they are one of the very many quirky elements to the Fallout franchise that make it special.
Fallout 76 uses caps as the games primary currency. Players can use it when purchasing and selling items between vendors, vending machines and more importantly, other players.
Caps are not the most difficult thing to gather, but you will likely find that when you suddenly find a need for them, you are stuck trying to get more. Most of us do not want to invest precious SPECIAL stats boosting your bater ability.
Easy Methods To Get Bottle Caps
This guide will cover some of the best methods that you can use to increase the amount of caps in your wallet as quickly as possible. Since any glitches and hacks are often patched out of the game, I will avoid listing any of these methods in this guide in order to keep it a guide that will remain useful forever.
Completing Events
This is a handy way to build up your wallet. It is not the fastest but I wanted to bring this up as it is probably the best way to kill multiple birds with the one stone. Xp, Caps, Treasury notes and the chance of getting lots of valuable legendary weapons. You will get caps for completing events but the real value comes from the loot you collect.
Reselling the legendary weapons at your CAMP, selling the standard weapons at a vendor will get you a lot of caps. On top of this, you will gather junk that you could sell or just scrap for resources. A lot of good comes from completing events. You might even get the ultimate legendary weapon for your build, saving you from having to buy that weapon from a player selling it for 20k caps!
Selling Items Instead of Scrapping
Scrapping items like weapons and armor are great for getting plans and also for getting the resources for future crafting. Some of the items that you find can actually be worth some money. You should never sell legendary weapons to an NPC vendor, there are better ways to do this that I will cover below. I am simply talking about weapons like hunting rifles that your bog-standard super mutant will drop.
There gets a point where there aren’t any more plans that you need for this weapon type, or any other for that matter. Gather these and just sell them to an NPC vendor. You may have noticed that you can’t sell ammo to these vendors. There are reasons for this, mainly to prevent cheating. Weapons and other items are the best that you will be able to sell.
You can also sell junk items that have not been scrapped. Glowing blood is something that sells for a surprisingly large amount of money and can be found in large amounts in any event that involves killing a lot of glowing ghouls.
Buy Caps
Seems like a bit of a cheat, but there are several places you can go to simply buy caps with money. Bethesda don’t sell the traditional “truck load of caps” or any other incredibly overpriced bundle with a stupid name. Much like how there are gold farmers for the likes of WOW there are cap farmers for Fallout 76. These people will sell you caps at a pretty good price.
There are a couple of marketplaces out there for this. I would recommend you check out SSEGold for Fallout 76 bottle caps. They also sell a lot of other items such as weapons. Using a service like this to buy caps is perfectly legit. There is no hacking going on. You simply meet another player in game and they would trade with you.
Sell Legendary Gear / Extra Recipes
When you get a legendary weapon that you do not, you may end up rushing to the nearest railway station to sell it for scrip. Before you do this, you need to try and assess the value of the item you have. You may not have a bloodied build, but there are plenty of others out there who do and they may want that weapon that you have, and will pay caps for it!
Setup a vending machine at your C.A.M.P. Most people set up a few and sell different types of items in each. Using letters, you can spell out what is sold in each one. Create vending machines for weapons and armor. Create another for extra recipes that you have. Some people may pay a few hundred caps for a recipe that you have 2 of.
Ammo is another incredibly valuable thing to sell for caps at a vending machine. Like before, some players will have a heavy weapon build and might need a lot of 5mm ammo. If you are not using any of these, you could sell your inventory of 10000 ammo for 1 cap a piece. You are sitting on a little gold mine.
Resell Bargains From Other Vending Machines
Some players will sell things without knowing the value of them. If you come across a player who is selling something well under value, you could buy it and sell it on at a higher price. Take all the knowledge you have earned from selling items you find to get a better feel for the market. There is a subreddit that is dedicated to buying and selling in Fallout 76. It is worth subscribing to this subreddit to get a better feel for the value of items in this game.
Selling Chems
Selling chems is a lucrative business from two angles. The first is from selling stimpacks, radaway and Rad-X. All players will need this stuff, some more than others. By selling it, you are tapping into a market that always has a demand. Selling them requires you to have the plans to craft them. It is a hurdle you need to get over but it is well worth the trouble.
The second angle is tapping into the junkie build market. The junkie perk gives players a range of buffs when they are addicted to chems. These players will always need to have chems to stay addicted. If you are selling them, you will keep these players fed! For most people, the buff chems are not going to be things you use very often. They will be taking up space in your inventory due to it feeling like a waste to throw them away. Selling them on is a win in many ways.
Ways To Avoid Spending Caps
One good way to build up your cap stash is to simply avoid unnecessary spending. Being clever about what you buy, will allow you to save money a lot faster. Here are some things that you could do to cut down your spending.
Fast Travel to Free Locations First
Both faction bases are free fast travel locations. You can also fast travel to your CAMP (and the tent if you use Fallout 1st). If you are at the bottom of the map and need to travel to the top, it will likely cost you around 40 caps if you do not have any perks to reduce the cost.
It doesn’t matter whether you side with crater or foundation, once you are taking quests from these locations, you can travel to them for free. If either of these are close to your destination, you can travel here first and then travel to the location you want, either by walking or through another fast travel. This could mean you have to watch two load screens. This does take up some of your valuable time, but it also means you save caps. This is what you are here for after all.
Craft Whatever You are Buying
You should never be purchasing food like grilled radstag or any sort of meat, plant or purified water. The main thing you might be buying are stimpacks, radaway or other chems. These items can be crafted, assuming you have the plans. This is a hurdle that you will have to get over, but if you start checking player vending machines often enough, you will eventually find it, if you don’t come across it naturally.
Once you have the ability to craft stimpacks, radaway and other chems that all players will need to use at some stage, you will be able to save a lot of money but also find you can make a lot by selling these to other players.
