The best Fallout 4 contraptions we've seen so far

The Fallout 4 community has been hard at work with the new Contraptions Workshop! Bethesda's latest DLC lets you turn your settlements into factories complete with machinery and conveyor belts, but naturally some players are taking a few liberties and using the parts and pieces to build contraptions of mass destruction (or at least mass annoyance). Here are the best of what we've seen.

There are plenty more clever contraptions in the works, so we'll certainly be adding to this page in the days ahead. And if you see something, say something: drop a link in the comments to any contraptions you've found or made yourself.

Calculator

History has shown us that if a game gives you logic gates, someone is going to use them to build a giant functional calculator. Above, you can see Redditor Quinchilion's proof of concept. First, they built a mechanical register and then followed it up with a 4-bit adder and multiplier. "... it is possible to create a general purpose computer in Fallout 4," Quinchilion says. "I do not suggest doing so, however, unless you want to spend your next two weeks running around and wiring logic gates together." Good point.

Abbatoir

Enterprising farmer '50451' decided to update their thriving mutated creature concern into a meat packaging plant. The radstags are caught using cages from the Wasteland Workshop, and as they're released from their cages, they're killed by sentry turrets. Then, they make a trip through the factory, where they're broken down into component parts and even dumped into boxes for easy shipping. Clever! Gruesome, but clever. The Manufacturing Extended mod was used.

Teddy torture

The first thing I personally tried to build was a cannon to shoot steel balls at a pilloried Blake Abernathy, which sort of, kind of worked, but not really. YouTuber 'Father' went to far greater lengths to punish some of Fallout's characters by building an elaborate teddy bear manufacturing plant, which fed the stuffed toys into pitching machines aimed at the heads of several characters while they were locked in pillories. Getting beaned by cuddly bears won't kill you, but being gently smacked with thousands of them would certainly be maddening.

Companion launcher

I like most of Fallout 4's companions, but just about all of them can get on your nerves once in a while, either by blocking doorways, getting injured, or just picking an inopportune time to want to discuss something personal. YouTuber Klone Wolf decided to take out some of his frustrations by gently coaxing companions (well, whomping them with a radioactive hammer) into a junk mortar and them launching them into a field of spike traps. Take that, endlessly loyal followers.

Four-story armor factory

Not everyone is using contraptions to hurt people. Redditor 'GRZ NGT' has cobbled together an impressive armor factory. It's four stories high, with production beginning on the roof and the components proceeding down, level by level, via conveyor belts. What will be done with all that armor? I dunno. But it's a neat way to make it.

Marcy Mangler

Fallout 4 Fun Fact: everyone hates Marcy. With pillories added to the game, it wasn't going to take long for players to exact some revenge. This neat gadget sends some cannonballs Marcy's way, where she is imprisoned in front of a sign reading, bluntly, "Fuck you Marcy." The fireworks celebration after she gets clobbered are a wonderful touch, too.

Paintball Pillory Punishment

Speaking of pillories, Youtuber 'IAGO' has built a rather complicated Rube Goldberg-esque machine involving ramps, traps, and pressure plates, which culminates in Preston Garvey getting shot in the butt by paintball guns. It looks like it took a lot of work to get right, probably hours and hours of testing and tweaking. Hard to argue with the results though. 

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.