07 — Scrap Farming

Last updated: May 18, 2026

Scrap is the universal currency. You research blueprints with it, buy from safe-zone shops, gamble it, trade it. Every player who's playing efficiently has a sustained scrap income from one or more routes. This file covers every route, with yields, time costs, risks, and the meta combinations that stack.

How scrap works

Scrap drops directly from crates (military, elite, basic), drops from barrels/boxes occasionally, can be earned via Bandit Camp gambling, and is obtained primarily through recycling loot items. A typical "good run" at a monument yields 100–500 scrap depending on monument tier and your time spent.

Pro tip: scrap is the input to almost everything that costs time-to-grind. Don't hoard it. Spend it on research, on Bandit shop exchanges, on Outpost shop, on tea ingredients. Scrap in the box doesn't make more scrap.

The recycler economy

The recycler is where most scrap actually comes from. You feed it loot items, it returns scrap + raw materials. Recycler yields are deterministic — every Tech Trash gives exactly 5 scrap, every Rifle Body gives exactly 25 scrap, etc.

Key recycle values (2026)

Most weapons themselves recycle into their component (rifle body, SMG body) plus a frag/scrap baseline.

Recycler locations and yields

Not all recyclers are equal. The yield rate varies by location:

The +20% bonus locations are worth the extra travel/PvP risk if you're farming hard. Same loot in, more scrap out.

Bandit Camp scope arbitrage

This is the most reliable infinite-scrap exploit (technically a feature, not a bug):

1. Buy a Scope at the Bandit Camp shop for 150 scrap.
2. Recycle the Scope at the Bandit Camp recycler → returns 48 HQM.
3. Sell those 48 HQM back at the Bandit Camp shop → returns ~192 scrap.
4. Profit: +42 scrap per cycle, plus you get a small XP and material movement.

Each cycle takes ~30 seconds. 5,000 scrap per hour if you grind it. Some servers patch this; on official Facepunch it remains the most predictable solo scrap income.

Pro tip: stockpile HQM first, then buy/sell scopes in batches. You can run the cycle 10 times before getting a scrap inventory warning.

Monument loot runs (active route)

The classic scrap source. You loot crates and barrels, recycle on-site.

Yields per monument run (avg, solo, no contestation)

These are averages on official servers with decent population. Modded high-loot servers multiply 3-10x.

Monument tea boost

Drink Scrap Tea (Yellow + White berries crafted at Mixing Table) before any monument run. +50% scrap from containers for 10 minutes. Stacks with everything else.

This is why you grow berries in 05_Horticulture.md. A clan with a tea stockpile is making +50% scrap on every monument run for the entire wipe.

Passive routes

Passive scrap routes earn while you sleep / play other content. They scale poorly but stack with active routes.

Horse dung composter → fertilizer → Bandit shop

Covered in 05_Horticulture.md. Stable of 4 horses generates ~16 dung/hr. Compost at 10:1 ratio = 1.6 fertilizer/hr. Sell at Bandit at 2 fertilizer = 3 scrap rate = ~2.4 scrap/hr per 4-horse stable. Scale up with more horses.

Effort: build stable + composter once, refill horse food once a day. Result: ~50 scrap/day passive. Not huge but free.

Greenhouse → tea → sell teas at Bandit / use for runs

Mixed-value tea sells at Bandit for ~5–10 scrap each. A greenhouse of 9 large planters × 9 plants × YYYYYY genes pumps ~50+ tea per day at clan scale. That's ~500 scrap/day passive plus all the buffs you use on runs.

Recycler-fed loot stockpile

If you have an industrial network feeding loot into a recycler and routing scrap output to a box, you have a passive recycler farm. The bottleneck becomes "how fast can you accumulate loot" — but combined with auto-sorters, you can dump 10 full inventories from monument runs and walk away while the recycler chews through them.

See 04_Industrial.md for the wiring. ~1,000 scrap/hour throughput on a tuned setup, fully passive once started.

Ocean / fishing route

Underrated source. Requires a boat (rowboat or RHIB) and a fishing rod.

Yields

• Salmon, Catfish, Orange Roughy, Small Shark: chance of dropping 6× scrap per fish (vs. 1× scrap nominal).
• Treasure crates sometimes float on water and contain 200–500 scrap.
• Sunken loot crates at underwater monuments yield 100–300 scrap each.
• Underwater Labs have ~5–10 crates per visit plus a recycler.

A solo with a RHIB can pull 500–800 scrap per hour fishing + diving, plus the relative safety of being far from land PvP. Best for night-time low-stress farming.

Underwater Lab specifics

There are 5–10 underwater labs spawn per map. Each lab has: - 5–15 loot crates (basic + military + elite mix) - 1–2 recyclers - Some scientists (rad-armored) - A respawn timer of ~30 minutes between visits

A lab run with scrap tea: ~400–600 scrap per visit, 20-minute run. Best scrap-per-minute outside the highest-tier monuments.

Metal detector

The Metal Detector (Workbench 2, 25 frags + 4 wire + 1 gear) lets you sweep for buried treasure on certain biome floors. Yields 7–13 scrap per find plus components.

Worth it as a passive activity while waiting for plants to grow or for low-key wipe time. Not a primary income.

Cargo Ship

The Cargo Ship is an event monument — spawns every 1–2 hours, sails around the map for 50 minutes, then despawns. Anyone can board.

Loot on Cargo: - ~5 elite crates - ~10 military crates - ~10 basic crates - 1 locked crate at the end (cracking it takes a hacker — requires 15 minutes + signal flare + Bradley APC defeated, complex)

Average scrap per successful Cargo run: ~1,293 scrap (per community testing, varies by RNG and how many other players you fight off).

A cargo run is high-risk (you're a giant target on an open ship for an hour) but high-reward. Best done as duo/trio.

Heli farming (Patrol Helicopter)

When the Patrol Heli spawns (random per server, multiple per wipe day), it carries 6 elite crates + 2 locked crates. Total scrap from a full kill + clean loot run: 500–1,200 scrap.

Cost to take down a Patrol Heli: 8–20 rockets (~8,800–22,000 sulfur). Or 200+ AK rounds to the tail. Or a SAM site bombardment.

Heli is profitable if you've got the rockets stockpiled and a place to fight from. Not profitable if you have to craft the rockets from scratch and farm sulfur for them — you spend more sulfur than you'll recoup in scrap.

Tip: heli farms best when you don't initiate. Wait for another team to engage, then loot when they get killed. Half the time the loot rains down for free.

Bradley APC (at Launch Site, also a Tank in some events)

Killable with 4–6 rockets through the back armor or with a couple of well-placed C4 stickies. Drops 2–4 high-tier crates with ~200–400 scrap total + named guns/armor.

Worth doing once per wipe. Multiple Bradleys mean clan-scale farming.

Train Yard

Trains spawn on the rail network and have lockable cars. The Yard itself is a monument with 200–400 scrap baseline plus the train arrival event.

A loaded train car can have 5–10 military crates. Whole train: 400–700 scrap if you defeat the scientists and dock it.

Gambling at Outpost / Bandit Camp

The wheel of misfortune (Bandit Camp) has betting tables. House edge is real — over long sessions you lose. But short visits when you have spare scrap can flip into a hot streak.

Not a strategy. Don't gamble for income. Gamble for fun with money you can lose.

Stackable buffs for max scrap

For a 10-minute farming push, stack:

• Scrap Tea (Yellow+White berries): +50% scrap from containers
• Hat with frosted lens or eyewear that doesn't reduce visibility
• Move via horse/rowboat/RHIB to monument, save run time
• Clear path with teammate as bait if duo/trio
• Use recycler at +20% monument location (Airfield, Arctic Research, Abandoned Supermarket)
• Multiply: 1.5 (tea) × 1.2 (monument bonus) = 1.8x baseline

A Power Plant run with these stacks: 300×1.8 = ~540 scrap per run. 6 runs per hour = 3,200 scrap/hour. Plus loot to recycle later.

Diminishing returns and ceiling

A solo with full optimization (tea, +20% recyclers, industrial auto-sort, greenhouse for tea supply, RHIB for ocean) caps around 2,000–3,000 scrap/hour sustained. Beyond that you're limited by monument respawn timers (crates respawn every 15–25 minutes; you can't farm faster than they spawn).

Clan with multiple farmers running parallel routes can hit 10,000+ scrap/hour total. Bottleneck shifts to "what do we spend scrap on" rather than acquisition.

Scrap spending priority

In rough order of value:

1. Workbench 3 research (1,250 scrap total to fully unlock). Unlocks rockets, C4, the best gear.
2. Component research (research items like rifle bodies, tech trash). Cheaper component acquisition long-term.
3. Bandit shop weapons (AK is 1,500 scrap, MP5 is 1,500, M249 is 4,000). Bypasses RNG.
4. Greenhouse seeds (planters: 30 scrap each at Bandit). Investment that pays back exponentially.
5. Industrial components (conveyor 210, crafter 250). The cheapest force-multiplier.
6. Tea ingredients (berry seeds at Bandit). Closes the tea-farming loop.
7. Gas mask / radiation gear (50–100 scrap range each).

Don't research: - Stuff you'll never use (sailboat, hot-air balloon as a solo) - Cosmetic crafts (instruments, dress) - Anything you can find drops for reliably in barrels

Common mistakes

1. Skipping recyclers entirely. Every monument has one. Use it. Inventory full of components recycles to 100+ scrap immediately.
2. Hoarding scrap. Spend it on research/tea/components. Stagnant scrap is wasted.
3. Going to Launch Site solo at wipe-day hour 1. You don't have the gear yet. Wait 6+ hours.
4. Not drinking tea before runs. The +50% is free if you're already brewing tea passively.
5. Selling Tech Trash to NPCs. Tech Trash recycles for 5 scrap per. Tech Trash sells at shops for less than 5 scrap. Always recycle.
6. Recycling everything blindly. Some items (rifle bodies if you don't have rifle research) are more valuable kept than recycled. Check before dumping in.

Pro tips

• The single best scrap-per-hour route for a solo: Bandit Camp scope arbitrage + greenhouse-fed tea + Airfield runs with scrap tea. ~3,000 scrap/hour sustained.
• For a duo: one farms monuments, one runs industrial/greenhouse passive. Stacks easily.
• For trio: add Cargo Ship runs every spawn (one person on overwatch, two looting).
• Always drink scrap tea before opening loot dropped at your base. That backpack from a kill, before you open it — tea up first.
• Time your runs to monument respawn. Crates respawn ~15–25 min. Run two adjacent monuments in rotation.
• Don't farm alone at night if you can avoid it. Night PvP heavily favors the defender. Move in pairs after sundown.
• Scrap is volatile per-server. Some servers run x2 loot, x5 loot, or vanilla. Vanilla scrap rates are what's quoted here; modded multiply accordingly.