Image Credit: IceEmpress66
Ho Ho Ho, a slaughtering we will go!
Holiday gift boxes are back and with it brings new camp items, plans, skins, and apparel to collect.
There are three ways to get your hands on these shiny, slightly misshaped boxes of joy:
Purchase the wrapping paper to craft them.
Set up the Santa Collectron to find them.
Find them in the wild on Holiday Santa Scorched.
Boring information:
Holiday gift boxes and wrapping paper are character locked and non-tradeable
Holiday gift boxes and wrapping paper can not be used in display cases
Chemist and Super Duper does not affect crafting and will not give you any extra gifts.
Ultracite veins near fissure sites can no longer be used to farm scorched.
There will be daily and weekly challenges that you will require you to participate in hunting down holiday Santa scorched.
Purchasing Holiday Gift Boxes (wrapping paper)
The most efficient way to obtain the plans and apparel is to purchase the mid-tier Wrapping Paper.
The following Vendors will sell Wrapping Paper while the event is running:
All Train Station Vendors
Atlantic City Vendor - Mobster (2024)
Atlantic City Vendor - Muni (2024)
Atlantic City Vendor - Showmen (2024)
Camden Park - Chad Responders Vendor
Charleston Fire Department - Mack Responders Vendor
Flatwoods - Bob Responders Vendor
Gilman Lumber Mill - June Responders
Grafton - Greg Responders Vendor
Grahm
Lite Ally - Sam
Lite Ally - Xerxo
Middle Mountain Pit Stop - Vera Blue Ridge
Watoga - Phoenix BOS Vendor
Whitesprings Resort Mall - BOS Vendor
Whitesprings Resort Mall - Free States Vendor
Whitesprings Resort Mall - Raiders Vendor
Whitesprings Resort Mall - Responders Vendor
Crafted gift boxes have better drop rates and they do not require too many materials to make.
Table of cost and reward drop rates for the holiday gift boxes:
If you are purchasing multiple gift boxes on the same server at the same time then the following route will save you time and fast travel fees.
Remember to check the Raider vendor bots for a very small chance of finding a rare coloured baseball bat in their inventory.
Grafton
Train Station
Responder bot inside Grafton Town opposite Protest March event
Pleasant Valley Ski Resort
Train Station
Raider bot inside the Ski Resort
Whitesprings
Train Station (sells x2 of each wrapping paper)
5 Faction bots in the Whitesprings Resort
Watoga
Train Station
BOS Vendor in Super Duper Mart
Server hop and repeat.
Resource/Junk Farming Guide if you are running low on materials to craft the pails
Santa Collectron
The Santa collectron is free for all players in the atom shop every Christmas and can be placed at camps and workshops.
During the Holiday Santa Scorched Christmas event, this collectron will find the three different size holiday gift boxes along with irradiated sugar bombs, sweets, coal, and general junk.
When the Holiday Santa Scorched Christmas event is over, the Santa collectron will continue to collect irradiated sugar bombs, sweets, and general junk.
If you wish to choose a different skinned collectron such as the raider or communist bot, simply use the terminal attached to the collectron base and select "Xmas Gifts!" for the Santa loot pool.
Note: If you are using the FETCH skin collectron, his loot pool is diluted with his default settings so he will always have circuitry as well as whatever collectron function you have chosen.
When the Christmas event is running; I will load into a private server, claim as many workshops as I can, and place Santa collectrons in all of them.
There is a limit of 1 collectron per workshop.
Once I claim the workshop and place down the Santa bot, I will hang around and finish the first defend the workshop event. I will then not go back to the workshop until I get the next defend event notification. It takes about an hour for the Santa bot to fill his loot container so the timings work well together.
I will then complete events and visit scorched spawn locations while waiting for the next workshop defend event.
Santa-tron Workshop Blueprint
Image Credit: Tooniversal
Alternatively, instead of returning to the workshop for the defend event, you can set up a Santa-Tron Workshop Blueprint to handle the event for you.
Build the Structure:
Place a single foundation and attach a set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs, add one or two upper floor pieces.
Place the Santa-Tron and the Fast Travel Mat (found in the MISC tab of the Workshop Build Menu).
Add Turrets:
Place two turrets on the ground-level foundation.
Place another two turrets on the upper floor at the top of the stairs.
Save as a Blueprint:
Once your setup is complete, use the Blueprint tab in the build menu to save it. This allows you to quickly place the structure at any workshop in the future without rebuilding each piece individually.
Pro Tip:
Equip the Contractor perk card under Intelligence to reduce the cost of building.
With this setup, your Santa-Tron will protect the workshop and complete defend events automatically.
Holiday Santa Scorched Farming
Holiday Santa Scorched will drop a 1, 2, or 3 star weapon or armour piece and a small (60% chance), medium (30% chance) or large (10% chance) holiday gift box upon death.
You will hear a jingle bell ring type music when you get close enough to them and they will always appear in a Mr Claus, Mrs Claus or Winter themed pants suit outfit as pictured above.
Sometimes you will see a legendary scorched that is playing the jingle bell ring music but isn't wearing an outfit. If you kill them when they aren't wearing a costume, there is a high chance that the treat bag and candy won't spawn in their inventory.
This is a minor bug that has occurred in the past. To fix this, move away from the scorched until they are no longer in your line of sight. Wait about 30 seconds and then come back. They should now be wearing a costume.
Note, Holiday Santa Scorched will not spawn inside buildings and instances that require a load screen to enter them.
The more enjoyable way to farm holiday Santa scorched is to complete events that have waves of scorched.
As of patch 32, a Public Event can no longer appear twice in a row in the same world, and events such as Grahm's Meat Cook and the Mothman Equinox will override any other public event.
Non-public events can be triggered for the most part by entering the area unless they are on their cooldown period. Non-public events have a 1 hour and 14 min cooldown.
Workshop defend events are classed as a non-public event. They will not trigger if a player is in the area but will still pop up every 1 hour and 14 mins.
Recommended events:
A Real Blast at Seneca Rocks Visitor Center
Always Vigilant at Relay tower DP-B5-21 & Relay tower EL-B1-02
Bots on Parade at Berkeley Springs Station (can sometimes spawn super mutants instead)
Collision Course (check the supply drop afterwards for a potential coloured baseball bat)
Distant Thunder (any location)
It's a Trap (any location)
Protest March
Surface to Air
Census Violence at Big Bend Tunnel East, Drop site V9 & Ranger District Office
Distinguished Guests (can sometimes spawn super mutants instead)
Line in the Sand
Scorched Earth
Farming method
This method will work on public and private servers
Step 1) Pick 10 to 12 locations from the list below. It is recommended that you pick one region on the map and only hunt in that region.
Step 2) FT to the first location and murder anything that moves.
Step 3) Loot ALL the bodies (very very important, even if they aren’t Holiday Santa Scorched). You can dump all the crap afterwards but you need those meat piles to disappear for this guide to work.
Step 4) FT to the second location and repeat Step 2 and Step 3
Step 5) Keep Fast Traveling around until you have visited all the locations, repeating Step 2 and Step 3. Take a 10 min break, FT back to the first location and more Holiday Santa Scorched will spawn.
Make sure to keep murdering anything that moves in each location and loot ALL the bodies.
For me personally, if there were no Holiday Santa Scorched there on my first run, then on my second or third run, I would get 1 to 3+ spawn there.
The sweet spot time is 10 to 12 locations. If you pick 9 or less locations then you need to wait about 20 to 25 mins before going back to the first location.
Locations:
Ash Heap
AVR Medical Center (outside)
Camden Park
Monongah Power Substation MZ-03
Fissure Sites
Forest
Groves Family Cabin
Tyler County Fairgrounds
Wilson Brother's Auto Repair
Morgantown Airport
Morgantown Train Yard
Portside Pub
Gauley Mine
Morgantown High School
Bolton Greens
Greg's Mining Supply
Helvetia
White Powder Winter Sports
Sutton
Wixon Homestead
Relay Tower EM-B1-27
Poseidon Power Substation PX-01
Poseidon Power Plant (outside only)
Charleston
Charleston Capital Building
Summersville Dam
Summersville Docks
Overlook Cabin
Riverside Manor
Relay Tower DP-B5-21
Toxic Valley
Wavy Willards
Black Bear Lodge
Poseidon Power Substation PX-03
Savage Divide
Bailey Family Cabin
Palace of the Winding Path
Monongah Power Substation MZ-01
Seneca Rocks Visitor Center
Pleasant Valley Cabins
Pleasant Valley Ski Resort
National Radio Astronomy Research Center
South Mountain Lookout
Fort Defiance
Relay Tower EL-B1-02
Fissure Sites
Cranberry Bog
Firebase LT
Bootlegger’s Shack
Ranger District Office
The Thorn
Firebase Hancock
Drop site V9
Glass Caverns (outside only)
Fissure Sites
The Mire
Thunder Mountain Power Plant
Moss Town
Crashed Plane
Berkeley Springs
Berkeley Springs West
Harper's Ferry (can sometimes spawn Super Mutants or Ghouls instead)
Valley Galleria (outside only)
Camp Venture
Fissure Sites
Other
Fissure Sites (unmarked & named). While the option to pick the ultracite veins is no longer available, there are still plenty of scorched that spawn here.
Watch your rads and your feet while playing around fissure sites. If you aren't paying attention, it's highly likely you will fall in and die.
Map of Holiday Santa Scorched spawn locations.
Credit to SugarBombsRADS for the map.
Downloadable copy of map here.
Rewards
The holiday gift boxes can be under "Aid" in your pip boy. Select it and press A to open it.
Before opening the gifts, check:
Your cap limit
Your scrip limit
You have the right weapon equipped for the contextual ammo
Photos of the rewards can now be found here.
Downloadable and printable reward checklists can be found here.
Hey there, I'm Kat, also known as Duchess!
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