Circuits imprimés dans Scrap Mechanic : fabriquer ou farmer

Four routes, and the crafted one never runs out

Circuit Boards turn up in almost every electrical recipe in the game, so the question is rarely where to find one. It is how to stop running out.

The four routes, in the order they usually become available:

• Bot drops. A Yellow Totebot always drops at least one, and a Farmbot drops three guaranteed plus two 50% rolls.
• Crafting. 20 Plastic Blocks and 2 Quartz make 1 Circuit Board at the Craftbot in 5 seconds.
• The Trader Hideout. 1 Banana Crate buys 10 Circuit Boards.
• The Mining Hub trader. 10,000 Wonk Stack buys 1, which is the worst rate of the four and only worth it if you are drowning in Wonk Stack.

Crafting is the one that scales. Plastic comes from Crude Oil at 5 oil per 10 blocks, and Quartz comes out of Quartz deposits with three guaranteed drops per deposit, so an oil pond and a few deposits keep the line running indefinitely.

Which bots to hit

The published tables, best first:

• Farmbot: 3 guaranteed boards plus 2 rolls at 50%. Grow Lab, underground and warehouse Farmbots are identical. A Farmbot in a farm raid drops to 1 guaranteed plus one 50% roll.
• Yellow Totebot: 1 guaranteed roll, awarding 1 to 2 boards. During a farm raid the same bot still gives a guaranteed board, but only ever one.
• Green Totebot: one roll at 75%. That falls to 37.5% underground and 16.7% in Grow Labs or farm raids.
• Blue Totebot: one roll at 50%, or 33.3% in a farm raid.

Farmbots again do the heavy lifting, and again the raid versions pay less than the same bot standing in the world. If boards are what you need, go looking for bots rather than waiting for them to come to you.

The starting area is more generous than it looks

A Common loot crate in the starting area has one roll at 40% for a Circuit Board, against 13.3% for the ordinary version elsewhere. That is a genuinely different number and it exists to get new runs off the ground. Clear the starting crates before you head out.

Containers everywhere else

• Common loot crate: one roll at 13.3%, or 16.7% in a warehouse, for 1 to 5 boards.
• Epic loot crate: five rolls between 2% and 16.7%, for 1 to 5 boards.
• Legendary loot crate: six rolls between 2.3% and 16.7%, for 3 to 5 boards.
• Ruin chest and restocking ruin chest: one roll each at 3.9%, for 1 to 2 boards.
• Warehouse file cabinets: two rolls at 1.3%. Lockers: four rolls at 1.3%.

Legendary crates are worth breaking for the quantity rather than the odds. Three to five boards in one hit is a decent haul, but you will open a lot of cabinets before you see one.

Crafting the supply chain

The full chain from raw materials is short:

1. Crude Oil into Plastic: 5 Crude Oil make 10 Plastic Blocks in 5 seconds.
2. Plastic and Quartz into boards: 20 Plastic Blocks and 2 Quartz make 1 Circuit Board in 5 seconds.

That works out at 10 Crude Oil and 2 Quartz per board. Oil ponds refill and Quartz deposits are dense, so the limit is how much of both you can carry rather than how much exists. Feed the numbers into the crafting calculator alongside whatever you are actually building and it will tell you how much oil to bring back.

Where all the boards go

A short list of the recipes that quietly consume them:

• Switch: 1 Metal Block Level 1 and 1 Circuit Board.
• Button: 1 Metal Block Level 1 and 1 Circuit Board.
• Logic Gate: 1 Metal Block Level 1, 1 Circuit Board, 1 Glue.
• Timer: 2 Metal Block Level 1, 4 Circuit Boards, 1 Glue.
• Sensor Level 1: 1 Metal Block Level 1, 1 Glass Block, 1 Component Kit, 3 Circuit Boards.
• Controller Level 1: 5 Metal Block Level 1, 1 Component Kit, 5 Circuit Boards, 1 Glue.
• Electric Engine Level 1: 20 Metal Block Level 2, 5 Component Kits, 10 Circuit Boards, 5 Batteries.
• XXL Chest: 100 Metal Block Level 2, 10 Circuit Boards, 5 Glue.
• Craftbot: 80 Scrap Metal Blocks, 10 Component Kits, 5 Circuit Boards.

Logic builds are the real drain. A single Controller and a couple of Sensors is already 11 boards, and a wired-up creation with a dozen gates and timers runs into the fifties. If you plan to build anything automated, set up the plastic line before you start rather than halfway through.

One thing worth checking first

Before crafting boards from scratch, look at what is already in your chests. Every light, sign and small electronic in the game bakes a Circuit Board into its recipe, and the ingredient that actually blocks those builds is usually Glass Blocks or Glue rather than the board. Each item page in the item database lists the full breakdown, which settles it in one look.