Making money legally with Repair

[Laclongquan]

Since I like to roleplay the game a little bit to keep interest high (but not too much because I am not anal)...

So I try to make some bottlecaps early game (before level 14) because I'm almost always broke despite inventory full of all kind of stuffs just saved for rainy day... and the very high expense during main quest firefights (5-6 different kinds of chems at once)

So anyway, I want to share this trick of making money in-character. Which is the way of a repairman.

You need to build up toward getting hand loader and jury rigging when it's available. Which mean invest in repair always.

Repair items with lowest percentage to get minimum of 17% each time. Checking that the value of the repaired item higher than total of its previous existence and the item of being used for repair. That mean a success of repair then sell is better than selling the unrepaired things.

Use fixing thing magazine whenever try to repair many things at once. That mag can raise extra 3% so it can be a good thing.

With that, you can still be a packrat (with warehouses full of stuffs saved for rainy days) and still can advance through tough fights (more spawn x3, baby).
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And no, before you yapping about run like hell toward the train and do 2-way smuggling between DC-Mojave, it's NOT in character to do so. OOC is not fun.

And no, other tricks mostly dont work, because it's low level (pre 14).

[Death_Reaper56]

Legally? Any way to make money without using the console or cheat mod's is legal.

[Risewild]

Legally? Any way to make money without using the console or cheat mod's is legal.

I think it's in-game legal, as in: "you're not stealing stuff and then selling it for profit, because your character is an honest person and not a thief".

[Laclongquan]

Also, bethesda game is notoriously easy to break. In-character way of playing would delay that breakage a little bit longer.
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EDIT: Talk about easy to break

During levelup, if you increase skill point to meet the req of a chosen Perk in next screen, you then can back up and redistribute point to how you see fit.

This is revelant to Repairers because you can set repair to 90 to get Jury Rigging, but then back up to dial it to 80. This is so you can continue making use of fixing things magazine. If you set repair 90, combined with Workman Coverall found in Point Look Out, you will get 100 and no need for this magazine any more.

In the interest of keeping things revelant and of use, I choose to use this bug in relate to repair skill 80.

[Risewild]

I always liked to buy Scrap Metal from Moira Brown for 1 Cap and then walk 15 steps and give it to Walter for 10 Caps.
Unfortunately, Moira only has Scrap Metal rarely, so we can't really make a living by being a "shrewd" business person like that.

[Laclongquan]

Scrap metal is downright rarely seen item in TTW so far for me. I use it too much.
--small edit: Karl in The Family down at Meresti station does sell a pack of 24 scraps at once in his huge inventory. Unsure if it's one time occurence or normal behavior.
--second edit: Tinker Joe down at Nuka plant does sell some as well. Unfortunately he operate in an area with active wild life and can very well get corncobbed. I once saw him get attacked by army robot and giant scorpion and yaoguai. It's a bet whenever we fast travel to this location~ You never know if he survive the day~

Cant find many merchants sell it. The two recipes to produce it lack many items rarely seen in CW so I can only make 2 so far. (Tin plate is very rare and with greater number in The Pitt than CW)

I used it to produce dart, which I regret now. Dart havent been used much and can be bought. (edit: on higher level 20+, it's a good way to deal with the terrifying high HP and/or DR enemies)

I used it for Weapon Repair Kit, the which I consume to repair expensive weapons like scoped magnum and Chinese assault Rifle and sell them. Use WRK that way each WRK would equal 400 bottlecaps in value. If I can find scrap metals more I can sleep happy.
+++If starting in Mojave, the critical lack is Wonder glue which is not so lacking in Capital Wasteland.

Also, if you lack primers and gunpowder, you can just disassemble all normal ammo, and replace those normal bullets with junk rounds, which cost cases, tin cans, and junk rounds. Most economical would be .308 and 12 gauge. This is a suboptimal use: it require Junk Round perk, plus abnormal number of cases, while you can buy jars of primers and powders at ghoul's Underworld in Museum of history, approachable on the way to Museum of Tech. But not totally useless because sometimes you just need to have a specific primers now instead of waiting who know when ghoul would restock.
--On the other hand, sometimes you used too much one type of bullets that shopping dont bring in enough resupply, and you gotta make new one yourself. I know I used up 308 hand loaded bullets and have to make do with what I can, economical or not.

[Laclongquan]

Combat for Repairman, by essence, is the rich-man style of playing.

In order to get Jury Rigging at 14, and various other repair related perks on the way, you need to invest in repair regularly, with determined threshold at perk-taking level. Combined with the need to invest in science and survival (so can craft and cook), the spare points for anything else is... woefully lacking.

Therefore your combat skill is almost uninvested. Without the use of magazine and various armor with gun bonus, it's rare circumstance to see guns, or energy, or explosive, or melee/unarmed beyond 50.

Which mean when you see combat along the main quest, you are going to be sorely pressed.

The keys to repairman's combat are: chem up to the grilled, combined with various handmade bullets exhausted in every fight. And there are definite steps to it, no random thing at all.
- Use lad life and today physician to up medicine and survival. This will increase effectiveness and duration of followed aid items. Also milspec to up guns if you have it to spare, which in early game is rare.
- Use stat boosting item next (fire ant nectar. buffout, mentat)
- Then start using hp and ap boosted item, (nuka quantum, sugar bombs...)
- Then steady and mirelurk cake (36 second)

Without using Logan Loophole, you are certainly addicted after the fight and going to visit doctor. But that's for after battle.

In battle, a repairman will use all the non-standard bullets. All the standards were broken into components before. Expensive? Yes. Doable? Also yes. You can repair all the things to sell and your bottlecaps are just sitting there after all.

You will find that a repairman exhausting their ammo in major fights like that is a common thing. Thus forced to use other weapons that normally you dont usually use. It can range from explosives (splash damage be damned!) to energy (low damage but it's not as if you have bullets) to melee and unarmed (which normally I dont use).

Combat to a repairman is expensive affair. it's never a hard thing, it just constantly nag at you to judge whether this fight bring back the loot worth the expense. And for non-LL a sudden return to town for doctors to cure addictions is a normal thing

[jlf65]

I normally make a workbench recipe for converting old appliances into scrap metal and electronics. Then all those toasters and telephones and fans will be useful for a change.

[Laclongquan]

The only thing prevent me from installing such mod, which I no doubt Nexus has some, is....

Bloody F3/FNV games are too easy to break, gameplay and/or economics.

I can think of one result from such mod: redundant of weapon repair kit in Capital Wasteland. That mean we can wholesale expensive weapons.
EDIT: up to before initiating Dead Money DLC, WRK is all-time high demand in Mojave. You dont have a steady supply of this items, or the components for it. Sierra Madre vending machine break this situation and can flood the market with this item if you bother.
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On another hand, there's something to be said for the clutters. It help to assuage the terrible need of OCD gamers.

[Laclongquan]

I ran out of .308 again. Cant make new ammo because no primer. MUST use the scraps and case to make junk rounds. TWICE. And this come from shopping around fouth of the map, underworld, rivet city, megaton, which not much because early game.

It come to that I do a whole round of shopping, then do the Operation Anchorage (free sniper rifle and bullets in use), then another whole round of shopping again. I am thinking maybe do Zeta next, because it doesnt use my inventory.

Currently at the stage of acquiring anti materiel rifle, which shoot .50 bullets. Expensive bullets, but it should share the burden with .308.

(Looking back note: Can convert to 308 caliber in The Pitt's ammo press. Can convert the surplus ammo so start hoarding the 556 and 5mm surplus, as well as other cheap ammo).