How to Find and Recharge Fusion Cores

Power Armour is the strongest form of protection in Fallout 4, that's without question. This reinforced armour provides defense from enemy attacks and even radiation. The big downside is that Fusion Cores (batteries) are essential to keep these suits powered.

I see alot of people asking the same questions over and over. How do you recharge Fusion Cores? So in this post I'm going to clear up a few of the mysteries surrounding these power sources to help you on your way.

First of all, Fusion Cores are hard to find but you need a good supply of them to keep your armour powered up. When you're wearing Power Armour, the usual activities that consume Action Points will also eat away at your core. For example, running is one of the quickest ways to deplete a Fusion Core quickly.

Always store your armour away when you don't need it. Never needlessly explore an area in a Power Armour suit unless you really need to. The only exceptions are if you're under attack from a high level foe, or the radiation level is affecting your survivability.

Can you recharge cores?

Put simply, no you cannot recharge existing Fusion Cores. They must be replaced with new cores once they run out.

There is no magic recharging station in the Fallout 4 world and these things are like uranium, once it's depleted it's gone. The game will automatically swap out a used core once it's empty and replace it with one of your reserves.

Secondly, there is no option to craft Fusion Cores for yourself, no matter how high your SPECIAL level and no matter what scrap items you may have. It's just not possible.

How to get more cores?

There are two primary ways to get new Fusion Cores:

Find (steal) them in the wasteland
Buy them from vendors

Where to find more?

Finding cores

The first option is the best for obvious reasons, most notably that you won't have to pay to get these cores. You'll usually be stealing them from crash sites or military bases. The list below shows some of the possible locations where you can get free Fusion Cores.

There is a large selection of cores in the Boston neighborhood (city area, centre of the map). However, this entire region is full of high level mutants and new players would be wise to avoid this area at the beginning. Thankfully, there are plenty of easy Fusion Cores in the North Western side of the world map e.g. Red Rocket Truck Stop and USAF Satellite Station Olivia.

Here's a handy list of many locations where you'll find free cores:

Red Rocket Truck Stop - North west of the world map, near the start of the game.
USAF Satellite Station Olivia - North west of the world map
Museum of Freedom, Concord - North west of the world map, near the start of the game. Use the bobby pins to pick the lock and grab the core.
South Boston Neighborhood - in the abandoned factory on the waterfront.
Parking Lot Funhouse, West Roxbury Township - Located in the southern half of the Commonwealth. There are 4 cores in the steamer trunk on the 4th level, left cell.
Cambridge Polymer Labs, Cambridge neighborhood - a large laboratory, suffering from extensive bomb damage.
Back alley scaffold steps, Charlestown Neighborhood - located on the rooftop in a steamer trunk. Access the roof by weaving through the fences to the reach the metal steps.
Crashed Vertibird (Military Barge), North End Neighborhood - located on the floating platform, core is inside a locked cage (Novice terminal).
Street corner, Theatre District Neighborhood, South Boston City - round the corner from the Nuka Cola sign, check the barrel by the dummies for the core.
Coastal Hideout, Coastal Commonwealth - in the North eastern corner of the world map, access the door under the bridge to a secret hideout and cell (Novice lockpick).
Vitale Pumphouse, Coastal Commonwealth - on the North Eastern side of the world map, a locked pumphouse has a 4 digit code. The answer to this puzzle is on the wall under the stairs.

Buying cores

The second option is to buy Fusion Cores, this is the only choice if you;ve collected all of the free ones from the map. Many vendors will sell Fusion Core for a sizeable amount of caps and you should invest in the Charisma perks to reduce prizes and get better trading options.

Vendors appear in many different areas of the map but these locations are a good place to start:

Abernathy Farm, South of Sanctuary, Northwest of world map - Blake Abernathy, Corrie Abernathy.
Diamond City, The Fens, South West Boston, centre of world map - John, Soloman, Polly, Henry Cooke.
Covenant, North Central Commonwealth - Dr Patricia, Deezer, Penny Fitzgerald, Talia McGovem.
Drumlin Diner, South East of Concord, North West Commonwealth - Trudy.
General Atomics Galleria, North Commonwealth, just south of Lake Quannapowitt - Bean, Crisp, Danny, Reg, Sprocket, Waitron.