The world of Fallout 3 is full of junk that you might find useless.  Who knew that Tin Cans would be useful?

So here’s a quick tip for the day, and another installment in… Useful Junk of the Day.

Those Lunch Boxes Aren’t for Food

Early on, you should grab up as many lunch boxes as you can.  These seemingly useless items are integral to the construction of a Bottlecap Mine.

The mine requires four parts:

• 1 x Lunchbox
• 10 x Bottlecaps
• 1 x Sensor Module
• 1 x Cherry Bomb

These mines pack a helluva punch.  They cause several times as much damage as a frag mine, and one of them could wipe out the average humanoid in one fell swoop.  Great for use in those situations where you know you’ll be ambushed by a lot of people, and you won’t have time to gun them all down one by one.

One other thing to keep in mind.  On the Fallout 3 Wikia page, it says:

Like normal Frag Mines, the Bottlecap Mine will become live and likely to cause instant death after it’s dropped into NPC’s pants (inventory) via theft.

I’ve never tried that out, but damn it sounds like fun.  Start saving those lunchboxes, and jack up your Sneak to have some real fun!