How to get explosive powder in Raft and what to use it for

If you want to start a floating farm, you need to stockpile some explosive powder in Raft. It sounds counterintuitive – the goal is raising animals, not exploding them – but it’s a vital component in crafting the canisters you need to capture animals and bring them back to your non-explosive enclosures on the raft. The process of obtaining explosive powder is a bit involved, though, and you to process some additional materials before you can get the powder.

How do you get explosive powder in Raft?

Explosive powder comes from the poison puffer fish. Take down one of those, and you’re guaranteed a bit of explosive goo. There’s a much lower chance that the fish will drop a second bit of goo as well.

Poison puffer are fairly common fish and haunt the waters around Caravan Island – keep an eye out for them if you’re making battery chargers or hunting down the Mayor’s Key – and they also call Plane Crash Island and Shipwreck Island home.

Take your explosive goo to the Smelter for processing.

How to get the Smelter in Raft

If you don’t have one of those yet, it’s one of the early machines you actually don’t need a blueprint for. Just research one of the materials required to build it at the work table, and you’ll automatically unlock the Smelter for crafting.

Those materials, and how many you need to make a Smelter, are:

• Plank (4)
• Nail (6)
• Dry brick (6)
• Plastic (4)

The Smelter turns explosive goo into explosive powder, and then you just repeat the process until you have all the powder you need.

Some players report finding explosive powder in suitcases or safes, but we haven’t found that much of it that way so far. Your best bet is farming it from poison puffers.

What do you use explosive powder for?

Explosive powder is part of the recipe for net canisters, which you use as ammo for the net launcher.

For the cannister, you need:

• 1 explosive powder
• 4 rope
• 4 stone

And for the launcher, you need:

• 2 scrap
• 4 plastic
• 2 bolt
• 1 metal ingot

Aim the launcher at the animal you want to tame and fire. Assuming it can be tamed, you’ll take it back to the raft, where you need to care for it with grass plots.

Once you're back on your raft, you'll want to start looking into building engine controls. Keeping a juicer around is a handy way to restore health in case of accidents - such as sharks or anglerfish - or if you just need a break, consider casting your line for a bit of fishing.