What each workbench level actually unlocks

Every recipe in the dataset behind the bind maker carries a workbench requirement, so I counted them. The distribution surprised me: the game is far more bottom-heavy than the progression feels. Almost half of everything craftable needs no workbench, and the top tier is a short, sharp list of guns, explosives, components and armoured building parts. Here is the shape of it, then what each tier costs to reach.

What the benches cost

Bench	Recipe	Crafted at	Time
Workbench Level 1	500 wood, 100 metal fragments	No bench	30 s
Workbench Level 2	500 metal fragments, 20 HQM, 5 basic blueprint fragments	Level 1	45 s
Workbench Level 3	1,000 metal fragments, 100 HQM, 5 advanced blueprint fragments	Level 2	60 s

Level 1 is a tree and a hundred fragments; there is no reason not to have one in the first hour. Level 2 is the first real gate, twenty HQM plus the blueprint fragments, and it is where the game opens up. Level 3 is a hundred HQM, which on most servers means either a serious mining session or a very good day at the recycler.

No workbench: 275 items

This tier is the whole early game and a surprising amount of the mid game. The things I would call out:

Hunting Bow Wooden Spear Stone Hatchet Stone Pickaxe Hammer Building Plan Sleeping Bag Furnace Tool Cupboard Code Lock Wooden Door Bandage Wood Chestplate Bone Armor Handmade Shell

Two of those are worth a second look. The Sheet Metal Door needs no bench — 150 fragments, no workbench — so there is no excuse for a wooden door once you have a furnace. And the Code Lock is 100 fragments at no bench, which most new players do not realise, because they assume anything electronic-looking needs a tier.

Level 1: 175 items

Level 1 is the gun powder tier, and everything that follows from that: the first ammo, the first real guns and the first explosives.

Gun Powder Pistol Bullet Revolver Waterpipe Shotgun Double Barrel Shotgun Crossbow Hatchet Pickaxe Beancan Grenade Satchel Charge Riot Helmet Bucket Helmet Pants Flame Turret Shotgun Trap

The satchel charge being a level 1 item is the reason early-wipe raids happen at all: it is the only wall-breaking explosive available before anyone has 20 HQM to spare. Nearly all of the electrical components — switches, timers, splitters, lights — also sit here, at 50 to 100 metal fragments each.

Level 2: 144 items

This is the tier that defines the middle of a wipe. Rifle ammo, the semi-automatic guns, the road sign kit, medical syringes, the large furnace, the rocket launcher itself, and the first turrets.

5.56 Rifle Ammo 12 Gauge Buckshot Semi-Automatic Rifle Thompson Pump Shotgun Python Revolver Rocket Launcher High Velocity Rocket F1 Grenade Medical Syringe Large Medkit Road Sign Jacket Coffee Can Helmet Heavy Plate Jacket Hazmat Suit Large Furnace Auto Turret Chainsaw High External Stone Wall

The detail that trips people: the Rocket Launcher is level 2 but the rockets that go in it are level 3. You can build the launcher a full tier before you can build anything to fire from it, apart from HV and incendiary rockets, which are level 2 and mostly used for something other than raiding.

Level 3: all 32 items

The top tier is small enough to list in full, and it is almost entirely three categories: the best guns, the real explosives, and the components everything else is made from.

The components column is the one that matters most and gets noticed least. Metal pipes, springs, gears and sewing kits are level 3 to craft, but they turn up in recipes at every tier below it: the revolver at level 1 wants a pipe, the road sign kit at level 2 wants seven sewing kits. That is why those four items are the ones people recycle for rather than craft, and why a level 3 bench changes what a group can do even for players who never touch an assault rifle — it turns scrap into the parts everyone was short of.

Reading the numbers

Two thirds of the game is craftable at level 1 or below. If a wipe feels like it is gated on the top tier, it is because the handful of things at level 3 — a rifle, a rocket, C4 and a facemask — are the ones that decide fights, not because most of the crafting is up there. For a new player the practical reading is: build a level 1 bench in the first hour, push for level 2 as soon as you have 20 HQM, and treat level 3 as a group project.

Every item on this site lists its workbench requirement alongside the recipe and craft time — the full item list is searchable by name — and the bind maker shows the tier for each item as you add it to a bind, so you can tell at a glance whether a loadout is going to craft where you are standing.

First hour crafting order Armour sets by cost What level 3 explosives cost