Copper is an essential resource in Fallout 76. It ‘s a required component of many electronic camp items and tools of the wasteland trade. Keeping yourself with a steady supply of copper is a necessity to thrive in Appalachia.
The best way to get copper quickly is to mine the copper veins at the following locations while wearing Excavator Power Armor.
- Solomon’s Pond
- Landview Lighthouse
- Kanawha County Cemetery
- Whitesprings Station
Smelting the copper ore with the Super Duper perk equipped will result in over 200 copper scrap.
How to Mine For Copper Ore Efficiently
Mining copper is one of my favorite ways to get copper in Fallout 76. It’s usually the easiest way to get massive amounts of copper quickly. It also gives me a sense that I’m doing something and not just running around picking up junk. There are a couple of things you’ll want to take into consideration before you start.
Craft a Suit of Excavator Power Armor
Getting a suit of Excavator Power Armor is a must if you’re going to be mining ore veins of any kind, not just copper. To get one, you’ll need to craft it, by completing the Miner Miracles quest that starts at Garrahan Mining Headquarters.
Once you have a suit of Excavator Power Armor, wearing the armor while mining copper veins increases yield by a factor of four. So you’ll get four copper ore every time you mine it instead of one. You should also note that you can typically mine a single vein multiple times.
How to Smelt Copper Ore
To start smelting copper ore, go to a Chemistry Workbench and from the menu choose smelting. Moving down, you’ll find Copper Ore as an option.
The smelting of copper requires some acid to break it down, but it’s pretty easy to come by. When you take your copper to a chemistry workbench, it requires three copper and two acids but will yield three copper scrap. So effectively a one to one ratio of ore to scrap.
Use the Super Duper Perk Card
When you’re smelting ore, you are technically crafting copper scrap from a game mechanics standpoint. That means that the Super Duper perk card applies for our purposes.
When you have three points into Super Duper, it will give you a thirty percent chance of doubling your crafting results. So instead of getting three copper scrap back, you have a thirty percent chance to get six. Just throw on Super Duper right before you do all your smelting and get an extra thirty percent yield for free.
Best Copper Farming Locations
Now that we know the whats, hows, and whys, let’s take a look at some locations that will provide us with the where. I’m only including areas that have multiple copper veins close to each other and don’t require extraordinary effort to farm.
Solomon’s Pond
Solomon’s Pond is located directly southeast of the Whitespring Station and southwest of Emmett Mountain Disposal Site. There isn’t usually much in the way of enemies here. Mostly wolves and things like that.
Go to the main house and walk down the stairs of the porch heading north. Behind the structure with the leather skins hanging, you’ll find three copper veins embedded into the short rock wall.
Continuing north from there, you’ll come to a copper deposit and looking up, and to the northeast, you’ll find seven more copper veins on the rocks directly ahead.
While wearing your Excavator Power Armor, those ten copper veins and the deposit usually net over eighty copper ore. If you smelt that with the Super Duper perk on that will get you over one hundred copper scraps. That’s some impressive copper yield for about ten seconds of work.
Landview Lighthouse
Landview Lighthouse is an excellent location for copper. It’s a short distance to the southeast of Vault 76 and is excellent for mining copper veins and farming copper items.
The lighthouse contains several easily attained copper items that you’ll want to make sure you grab while you’re here mining. On the ground floor under the stairs, you’ll find six Lighthouse Souvenirs that scrap down for two copper each. There are also a couple of lamps on the upper level of the main house. That’s fourteen copper for those playing along at home.
Now head north from the lighthouse towards the covered picnic area. Keep heading directly north from the picnic area until you come to a cliff face. With the cliff on your left, continue forward until you come to a copper deposit.
With the copper deposit and the three copper veins mined while wearing your excavator suit, you should net over thirty copper ore every time. With Super Duper equipped, you should hit about forty copper after smelting. If you grabbed the items from the lighthouse and the main house, we’re looking at a total of fifty-four copper scrap from this location.
Kanawha County Cemetery
Kanawha County Cemetery is on the far west part of the map north of the Kanawha Nuka-Cola Plant and northeast of Ohio River Adventures. For reference, Vault 76 is to the northeast.
On the south side of the cemetery lies a large white church. Standing outside the south side of the church with your back to the wall, move south with the broken wall just on your left. A short distance straight ahead, you’ll find a copper deposit. Heading directly southeast from the copper deposit, you’ll encounter three copper veins nestled in the rock wall.
Similar to Landview Lighthouse, you should pull in about twenty-four to thirty-two copper ore depending on how many times you’re allowed to mine each ore vein and the deposit. Smelting with the correct perks, and you’ll end up with thirty plus copper from this location.
Whitesprings Station
Whitesprings Station is to the east of the iconic Whitesprings Resort, which is far to the southeast of Vault 76 near the middle of the map.
Once you get here, look for the red water tower. It’s on the east side of the station a stone’s throw from the stash box. Looking east from the east side of the tower, you should see three copper veins in the rock wall a few feet away.
Harvesting these copper veins while wearing Excavator Power Armor usually nets me twenty-eight copper ore. With the Super Duper perk equipped during smelting, it often yields thirty-six or more actual copper scrap.
How’s that for efficiency? Not as good as Solomon’s Pond, but not too shabby for literally a minute or two worth of work.
Conclusion
There are a lot of ways to get copper in Fallout 76, but this is easily the most efficient. I hope you found this post helpful. Be sure to check out my other guides on this site to help you get truckloads of other resources as well.
