Scarcity is a primary theme in Fallout 4 so you'll want lots of bottlecaps (money) to keep yourself supplied in your run through the Wasteland. Bottlecaps are arguably the best way to farm uncommon items cause they are usually easier to buy from vendors than they are to grind from mobs.

In this post we'll explore a simple method for farming infinite bottlecaps in Fallout 4.

Farming Infinite Money

To farm infinite money, we'll be leveraging Fallout 4's base-building mechanics to build an infinite resource farm at our settlement. The resource we'll be farming is Purified Water.

Purified Water is a good resource to farm for several reasons:

• Simple - Requires minimal base items / components to get started and doesn't require settlers
• Scalable - Easy to get started early game and scales with you through late game
• Valuable - Good Value:Weight ratio (40) and doubles as a good healing item

I've got a full guide on how to simply and efficiently farm infinite Purified Water so take a look at that for more info but the gist is:

• Start with Water Pumps - Low initial resource investment, can be built on dirt
• Level up to Water Purifiers when you have the resources - Costs more but has way more output

Turning Water to Caps

Once you've got your Purified Water production setup, your settlement will start producing and storing it automatically on a ~daily basis. Now we need to figure out how to turn them into cash.

The good thing is that Purified Water is a hot commodity so all vendors will buy them off you for a few caps. In my playthrough they're buying for ~7 caps each but this may vary based on your character's charisma, perks, and faction alignments.

My system for turning water -> cash is:

• Every time I go back to base (repairs, upgrades, storing loot, etc) -> Get produced water from workshop
  • My base produces ~130 waters per day
• Travel to a vendor I like and sell them my excess water
• I like to keep ~20 on me for use as healing items so this nets me ~700 free caps to trade with or stockpile

Tips for Effective Bottlecap Farming

There's a few other things you'll want to keep in mind when using Purified Water as a cash crop.

• Siphon produced water regularly - Fallout 4 Settlements currently have a production cap for various resources. This means when resources in a base's inventory exceed the cap, the base will stop producing that resource. For water this usually means that you'll only ever have ~1 day's worth of production stored in inventory so it's in your best interest to regularly take the stored inventory so the base goes back to producing. This is why I like to regularly check for water each time I go back.
• Build up production as you go - Water is a very simple resource to produce but there is significant scrap investment involved to level up your production. Instead of blocking your playthrough to expand production, it's usually best to build up as you go. Even a small water production will give you extra caps early game and you'll quickly have more than you can use by midgame so no reason to make it a grind.
• Vendors have low bankrolls - By midgame you'll likely be producing 100+ waters per day worth over 700 caps and your production will only grow with time. This is great but it's not so simple to convert all of this into caps because most vendors only have about 400 caps on them. This means amassing a large amount of caps can be tedious, requiring trips to multiple vendors. Instead you might consider taking the caps they have and then trading the rest of useful resources you need anyway - ammo, fusion cores, shipments, etc.

Next

I've really been enjoying my latest Fallout 4 playthrough and exploring the base mechanics they have. Hopefully this helps you start your own profitable caps venture.

If you liked this post you might also like:

• Fallout 4: Simple Infinite Purified Water Farm
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