If you’ve spent even a few hours running missions in The First Descendant, you’ve probably stared at a full inventory screen wondering what to do with all the low-tier and duplicate weapons cluttering your slots. Wasting valuable storage on gear you’ll never use doesn’t just slow down your loadout swaps—it also means you’re missing out on tons of rare materials you need to upgrade your favorite weapons and descendants. Figuring out where to dismantle weapons the first descendant is one of the first quality-of-life hacks you can learn to make your playthrough far smoother, even before you start tackling endgame content. I spent my first 10 hours of play selling weapons for tiny amounts of credits before I realized dismantling gives 10x more useful rewards, so I’m breaking down everything you need to know to skip that mistake.
Where to Dismantle Weapons in The First Descendant: Exact Locations
You don’t have to hunt for hidden terminals across the map to break down unwanted gear, there are two easily accessible spots you can use at almost any point in your play session. The first permanent location is the Albion Headquarters Crafting Terminal, located right next to the main weapon merchant in the central hub. It has a bright blue glowing interface, and you just need to interact with it and select the “Dismantle Gear” option to pull up your full weapon inventory. You can use this terminal even if you’re in a multiplayer lobby, no need to leave your group to clear space.
The second, more convenient option is the post-mission reward screen. After you complete any mission, you’ll see a list of all the weapons and items you earned during the run. There’s a small dismantle icon next to each reward, so you can break down unwanted gear immediately before you even return to the base. This saves you the hassle of carrying extra junk back to Albion, especially if you’re running back-to-back farming runs. The only time you can’t dismantle weapons mid-run is if you’re still in an active mission, unless you have a rare consumable field dismantle kit you can buy from the in-game shop.
Key Benefits of Dismantling Weapons Instead of Selling Them
A lot of new players default to selling unwanted weapons for quick credits, but dismantling gives far better rewards for almost every use case. I learned this the hard way when I was stuck trying to upgrade my first 4-star shotgun for three days because I didn’t have enough alloy plates, which you can only get from dismantling weapons. Here are the biggest perks of choosing dismantle over sell:
- Rare upgrade materials: You get alloy plates, weapon cores, and elemental dust that you can’t buy with regular credits, required for ascending 4 and 5-star weapons to max level.
- Inventory space saved instantly: Dismantling multiple items at once clears 10+ slots in 2 clicks, no need to scroll through vendor sell menus to offload junk.
- Descendant unlock materials: You have a rare chance to get character fragment drops from dismantling 3-star and higher weapons, which count towards unlocking new playable descendants.
- No wasted resources: Even fully upgraded weapons return 70% of the materials you used to level them when dismantled, so you don’t lose progress if you swap to a new meta weapon.
Credits are easy to earn from mission rewards and daily challenges, but upgrade materials are consistently the biggest bottleneck for progression. Dismantling every weapon you don’t plan to use will keep your material stock high enough that you never have to pause your progress to farm for basic parts.
Pro Tips to Optimize Your Weapon Dismantling Routine
Once you know where to dismantle your weapons, you can tweak your routine to save even more time and get more value out of every dismantle. First, always use the bulk select filter on the dismantle screen. You can filter by weapon rarity, type, and power level to select all grey and green weapons in one click, instead of picking each one individually. I usually set my filter to select all weapons below 20 power level that aren’t locked, and it clears 80% of my junk in one go.
Next, check for unique weapon perks before dismantling any 2-star or higher weapon. Sometimes a low-rarity weapon has a perfect perk roll you can extract and put on your main weapon, so don’t just auto-dismantle everything above grey rarity. For example, I once found a 2-star pistol with a 30% damage boost against robot enemies, which I extracted and put on my main 5-star sniper to make boss fights way easier.
If you’re farming for specific elemental materials, sort your inventory by element before dismantling. Fire weapons give fire dust, cold weapons give cold dust, and toxic weapons give toxic dust, so you can target dismantle weapons of the element you need for your next upgrade. That’s a huge time saver when you’re trying to max out an elemental weapon for a specific boss fight that’s weak to that damage type.
Common Dismantling Mistakes to Avoid
Even experienced players make costly dismantling mistakes from time to time, so there are a few rules you should follow to avoid losing valuable gear. First, never dismantle event-exclusive weapons before checking if they’re part of a collection. Some limited-time event weapons give account-wide stat bonuses if you keep one copy in your inventory, so dismantling them means you lose that bonus forever, even if the event comes back around later.
Second, double check your alternate loadouts before bulk dismantling. If you have a loadout saved for your support descendant, the weapon might not show up in your active inventory, so it’s easy to accidentally dismantle a gun you use regularly for group play. I made this mistake once when I dismantled a fully upgraded healing rifle I used for co-op missions, and I had to spend two days farming to get a new one to drop.
Third, don’t forget to unlock the auto-dismantle perk when you hit player level 15. This passive automatically dismantles all grey and white weapons you pick up mid-mission, so you never have to deal with a full inventory in the middle of a run. I forgot to unlock this for 20 levels, and I wasted so much time returning to base every two missions to clear space for new drops.
At the end of the day, learning where to dismantle weapons the first descendant is a small skill that makes a massive difference in how smoothly you progress through the game. You’ll never run out of upgrade materials again, you’ll never have to skip picking up a rare weapon because your inventory is full, and you’ll save hours of time you would have wasted selling useless gear for pocket change. Take 5 minutes next time you log in to test out the dismantle terminal, set up your bulk select filters, and unlock that auto-dismantle perk as soon as you hit level 15. You’ll thank yourself later when you’re able to max out your endgame weapons days earlier than you would have otherwise.