Materials are used to upgrade your ship components using Engineer blueprints. Some materials are also used to unlock certain items.
There are three different kinds of materials:
- Raw Materials
- Manufactured Materials
- Encoded Data
Materials do not take up cargo space; instead you have a fixed storage shared between all your ships – the amount you can store depends on the material grade:
- Very Common : 300
- Common : 250
- Standard : 200
- Rare : 150
- Very Rare : 100
If you farm Grade 4 or 5 materials you can trade them to a lower grade material at a Material Trader, which can be a very fast and efficient way to get the materials you need. However, when trading from a lower to a higher grade material you have to pay more materials than you receive!
raw MATERIALS
Raw materials are most often collected from geological sites on planet surfaces using your SRV but some can also be collected from asteroid mining.
The sites listed below are some of my favorite mining spots close to my home base Shinrarta Dezhra but you can use INARA to fine other planets near your location – simply enter your current system in the NEAR STAR field and enter the material you need in the MATERIALS PRESENT box and click SEARCH; the search results will liste the nearby planets with the highest percentage of the material at the top of the list.
Material | Grade | Where to farm |
---|---|---|
Antimony | 4 | Collected on planets using your SRV: HIP 60051 – A 1 site 5 |
Arsenic | 2 | Collected on planets using your SRV |
Cadmium | 3 | Collected on planet surfaces e.g. Shinrarta Dezhra – AB 2 F A |
Chromium | 2 | Asteroid mining or collected on surface. Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |
Germanium | 2 | Collected on planet surfaces or mined from asteroids. |
Manganese | 2 | Collected on planet surfaces – Found lots of Manganese on Algol – A 4. There is also an USS with Earth Relics in this system. |
Molybdenum | 3 | Collected on planet surfaces: Tiris – 1 c ; best site: 4,1 – avoid site 2,3,5 |
Polonium | 4 | Collected on planet surfaces: Tiris – 1 c ; avoid site 2,3,5 |
Selenium | 4 | Collected on planet surfaces – my favorite spots are either CPD-51 3323 – 1 d a (4,9%) or Prthi – 2 a (4,4%). |
Tellurium | 4 | Collected on planet surfaces: Nu Tauri – 1 site 1,3 |
Tungsten | 3 | Collected on planet surfaces: Nu Tauri – 1 site 3,10,13,1 – notice: high G |
Vanadium | 2 | Collected on planet surfaces: Tiris – 1 c ; avoid site 2,3,5 |
Zirconium | 2 | Collected on planet surfaces + asteroid mining. |
MANUFACTURED MATERIALS
Manufactured Materials can be collected from USS’s e.g. Aftermath of Combat or High Grade Emissions. You can also collect these materials after killing pirates at Resource Extracting Sites or from crashed ships at planet surfaces. A popular way to quickly farm high grade manufactured Materials is by visiting the abandoned settlement Dav’s Hope, where you can also get Encoded data by scanning the Data Point.
Material | Grade | Where to farm |
---|---|---|
Chemical Destillery | 2 | USS Aftermath of Combat in shipping lanes |
Chemical Manipulators | 4 | >USS in ANARCHY systems in OUTBREAK state |
Conductive Polymers | 4 | USS Aftermath of Combat in ANARCHY systems in OUTBREAK state |
Core Dynamics Composites | 5 | USS High Grade Emissions in high-population Federation system in BOOM state. |
Exquisite Focus Crystals | 5 | Mission reward or Material Trader |
Heat Vanes | 4 | USS: Combat Aftermath in ANARCHY systems |
Hybrid Capacitors | 2 | USS / Abandoned Settlement |
Imperial Shielding | 5 | USS: High Grade Emissions in high-population Imperial systems in BOOM state |
Improvised Components | 5 | USS: High Grade Emissions in CIVIL UNREST systems |
Proto Heat Radiators | 5 | USS: High Grade Emissions in High Population systems in BOOM state; found in Lave |
Proto Radiolic Alloys | 5 | USS: High Grade Emissions in high-population Independent systems in BOOM state. Also Sol (Federation) in NONE state. |
Sensor Fragment | 5 | Crashed Thargoid ship at HIP 17403 – A 4 A |
Thargoid Carapace | 2 | Collected on planet surfaces: Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |
Thargoid Energy Cell | 3 | Collected on planet surfaces: Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |
Thargoid Technological Components | 4 | Collected on planet surfaces: Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |
Thargoid Organic Circuitry | 5 | Collected on planet surfaces: Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |
ENCODED DATA
Encoded Data can be acquired by scanning other ships, FSD wakes, data points in settlements or in USS. Some can also be given as mission reward. However, the fastest and easiest way is get Encoded Data is from Jamesons Crash Site and then simply trade to the materials you need.
Material | Grade | Where to farm |
---|---|---|
Cracked Industrial Firmware | 3 | Scanned from settlement data point. Mission reward. |
Datamined Wake Exceptions | 5 | Scan High Wake / Scan Private Data Point / Encoded Emissions / Mission reward |
Eccentric Hyperspace Trajectories | 4 | Scan High Wake |
Irregular Emission Data | 2 | USS with Private Beacon / Mission reward |
Modified Consumer Firmware | 2 | Jamesons Crash Site |
Modified Embedded Firmware | 5 | Scan datapoints in Medium or High Security settlements |
Unexpected Emission Data | 3 | Scan combat vessels + salvage from USS |
commodities
Technically these commodities are not materials but I have included them on this page as they are required to unlock certain items.
Notice: These commodities are not materials but require cargo space!
Material | Grade | Where to farm |
---|---|---|
Meta-Alloys | – | Collected from Thargoid Barnacles on planet surfaces; Hyades Sector AQ-Y d81 – C 2 ; site 3 |