How to Get Gunpowder in Windrose: A Crafting and Farming Guide
Starting a survival game with a firearm feels like a massive advantage right up until you realize you do not have any gunpowder.
Windrose drops you on a beach with a pistol in your pocket. Naturally, I tried to shoot the very first boar that looked at me funny, only to realize the gun was essentially just a heavy metal club. You need bullets, yes, but more importantly, you need the explosive powder to actually propel them out of the barrel. Without it, your fancy ranged weapon is entirely useless.
Getting your hands on this explosive dirt is a two part journey. Early on, you have to steal it. Later, when you finally establish a decent base, you have to manufacture it. Here is how to keep your guns firing so you can actually survive the local wildlife. If you are struggling with the absolute basics of keeping your health bar full while you look for ammo, read my beginner's survival guide first.
Looting and Stealing Early Gunpowder
For the first several hours of your pirate career, crafting explosives is completely off the table. You lack the technology and the required raw materials. You are going to have to scavenge your initial supply from the people who are currently trying to shoot you.
Raiding Blackbeard Pirate Camps
The most reliable early source of gunpowder is the local pirate population. When you eventually start the quest to rescue your missing crew and acquire your first vessel, you will have to raid a few Blackbeard Pirate Camps. I highly recommend reading my Windrose ship progression guide if you have not triggered this specific questline yet.
Dead sailors frequently drop small amounts of Homemade Gunpowder when you kill them. Do not just kill the guards and leave. While you are clearing out these camps, keep an eye out for Old Packages. These are large, square bundles that sparkle on the ground. Smash them open with whatever weapon you have on hand. They almost always contain a small stash of explosives.
Scavenging Points of Interest
Do not ignore random ruins and underground caves while exploring. Every time you clear a point of interest on the starting islands, open every single chest. The drop rate for gunpowder in random wooden crates is fairly low, but it adds up over time if you are diligent.
Make it a habit to completely strip every location bare. If your pockets keep filling up with useless junk while doing this, check out my inventory and storage guide to expand your backpack and build better base chests. You are going to need the space to hold all this stolen ammo.
Transitioning to Mass Production
Stealing from rival pirates is incredibly satisfying, but it is not a sustainable long term business model. Eventually, you will want to stop relying on random drops and start crafting your own dedicated ammunition supply line.
Unlocking the Millstones
You cannot just mix volatile chemicals by hand at a standard wooden workbench. You need to build a dedicated Millstones station. To even unlock this recipe in your crafting menu, you need to find a single piece of Corn.
Corn grows naturally on the islands, so just keep harvesting wild crops as you explore the jungle. Once you pick up your first ear of corn, the recipe for Millstone Parts will instantly unlock at your regular Workbench. Crafting the parts is cheap, requiring just 15 Stone.
Building the Station
Take those freshly crafted Millstone Parts, open your build menu, and combine them with 15 Wood to construct the actual Millstones station inside your base perimeter. Ensure you place it within range of your Bonfire so it can pull resources directly from your storage boxes.
The Homemade Gunpowder Recipe
Now you need the actual chemical ingredients. You are going to be mixing Ash and Sulfur.
Ash is incredibly easy to stockpile. Every time you burn wood inside a Charcoal Kiln to fuel your metal smelting operations, the kiln spits out Ash as a natural byproduct. If you do not have a kiln running yet, you need to read my clay gathering guide to get your industrial sector started.
Sulfur is the annoying part. You have to mine it from specific yellowish rock nodes. You will occasionally spot these nodes scattered around the coastal jungles, but they become much more prevalent once you progress into the Foothills biome. Bring a decent pickaxe, because mining sulfur with stone tools is a miserable experience.
Managing Your Ammo
Having a chest full of explosives at your base does not automatically make your gun work in the field. The game has a very specific quirk regarding how it handles ranged weapons and ammunition slots.
Equipping the Powder
You need two separate items active in your inventory to fire a damn gun. You need the physical bullets, and you need the gunpowder.
When you loot or craft gunpowder, it should automatically slot itself into the dedicated Ammo slot right next to your equipped bullets in your inventory screen. If your gun refuses to fire during a fight, open your menu and manually double check that both items are actually sitting in their correct slots. Sometimes the inventory system gets confused if you move things around too quickly.
There is an auto refill toggle you can turn on in the inventory screen to make reloading mid fight significantly less stressful. Just make sure you actually keep a healthy supply of powder in your pockets before picking fights with heavily armed enemy captains. If you are curious about what other firearms you can craft to utilize your new stash of explosives, take a look at our weapons and armor crafting guide.
