In The Last Caretaker, resource gathering is unlike most survival games. You won’t be chopping wood or mining stones—virtually everything you craft will come from a method of breaking objects down into scraps and then refining those down into materials. This guide will explain how scraps work, how you can dismantle items, how to use the Recycler, and how to best decide when to reuse or recycle the Fabricated Parts.
Scraps & Materials Explained
If you’re playing The Last Caretaker with the idea of using the usual survival formulas followed in most games then you are in for a shock. This world does not give you resources that easily. You will recognize a few items lying loose here and there—in abandoned camps, wrecked ships, or busted devices—but these items will not last long when you rely on them for crafting.
The real activity of gathering resources here involves one idea: take things apart, use the debris to create materials, and build what you need. Everything you create comes from one of these cycles. The base rhythm of the game will follow a simple pattern:
Take apart objects → turn scraps into materials → craft items
But before you can start pulling things apart, there’s one tool you must unlock early.
Unlocking The First Essential Tool
When you attain Level 2, you’ll earn the Dismantle Tool, and it won’t cost anything to activate. The Dismantle Tool is your ticket to collecting scrap material from your surroundings, once it’s unlocked. Here’s how to access and use it:
- Access the Tool menu (default by T)
- Use a right-click to add it to the hotbar so you can quickly switch to this item.
With the Dismantle Tool equipped, you can target most loose objects (basically anything not firmly built into the environment). The amount of time and energy it will take to break an item down will vary based on what item(s) you decide to dismantle.
Turning Scrap into Materials
Your crafting progress really begins when you start converting scrap into proper building materials. Although the blueprint to build a Recycler appears at Level 4, you won’t be stuck waiting — your starting boat already includes one on board.
You’ll need to power it on by using the switch located on the left side, and once it’s running, place the scrap you’ve collected into the machine. After it completes the process, the refined materials will be available to collect on the right side of the Recycler.
Later in the game, placing more than one Recycler can help move things along much faster, letting you produce larger amounts of materials without long waits.
When to Recycle vs. Reuse
Eventually you’ll need something more advanced than basic materials — Fabricated Parts. These are used for higher-tier creations like machinery or equipment such as turbines, solar tech, or weapons.
The game handles this cleverly:
If you know how to craft an item, you’re also allowed to break that finished item down to recover its Fabricated Parts. Items that are in good shape return the full set of parts; damaged ones only return a portion.
That means if you stumble across, say, a turbine out in the wild and dismantle it, you’ll walk away with the components required to build one yourself later.
