Chernobylite: How to Craft Lockpicks

Chernobylite‘s Exclusion Zone is decrepit and demoralizing just to look at, and surviving in it is even harder at times, especially if you don’t know how to craft lockpicks.

Lockpicks are sneakily one of the most important resources in the whole game, but you’ll find almost none in the open world, meaning you have to craft them yourself to get the most out of every mission. Here’s how to craft lockpicks in Chernobylite.

How to Craft Lockpicks in Chernobylite

At your base, you have the freedom to design your living space, craft objects, and train with your allies to learn new, crucial skills. You can open your crafting menu at any time (B on keyboard, back button on controllers), then scroll through the menus in this order:

• Igor’s Inventory>Crafting Tools>Industrial Grinder

To craft lockpicks virtually at will, you’ll want to build this tool. To build the Industrial Grinder, you’ll first need to have:

• 4 Mechanical Parts
• 8 Electronic Parts
• 4 Flammable Parts

These items, and any others, can be found in any level of the game, so make sure to scavenge all you can carry back home with you. Once you have enough parts, choose where you want the grinder to go, then place it within your base.

At that point, you can build lockpicks as often as your inventory allows. Lockpicks come with their own resource cost. Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 Mechanical Parts
• 1 Chemical

In any given mission, you’re liable to stumble on as many as three or four places where lockpicks can be used. Sometimes it’ll be a locked wooden door, a locked metal door, or you’ll even find traders wandering the Exclusion Zone who may want one and are willing to barter with you.

Similarly, some traders have them for trading back to you, but these are few and far between, so it’s best to head into any mission with at least three lockpicks if you can craft enough.

It’s also worth noting that things such as resource costs and the number of resources you find can be improved by learning passive skills from your allies. Tarakan offers a skill called Saving, which reduces the cost of any crafted item, while Mikhail can improve how much of any resource you pick up when you find them.

Behind locked doors are often some critical supplies like food rations, resource caches, and even clues that will help you unlock further story threads on your investigations board in Igor’s bedroom. This is why lockpicks are, by our estimation, among the most important items in the entire game.

It’s vital to balance your allies’ health and wellbeing as well as your own, and using lockpicks where they’re called for acts as a shortcut to filling their bellies or lining your pockets with ammo. For more on Chernobylite, don’t miss our review.