Oxygen is "hard to come by?"

[UncreativelyNamed]

Noob here! I've been playing NMS for about six weeks. I went in completely cold, didn't watch any streams or videos about the game, just figuring things out for myself with an occasional hint from a wiki or something when I get stuck. I find this more enjoyable. I started in relaxed mode and have gradually bumped up the settings as I learn more and become comfortable, and I now play with mostly normal settings with a few things bumped up to max difficulty. (Not interested in permadeath or storage limits, though.)

Now that I do have the basics down, I've been watching some streams on YouTube to see what other people do, etc. More than one has mentioned that oxygen is hard to come by? To me, it isn't. My favorite thing to do is to just explore planets on foot, dodging/fighting sentinels, organically happening across buildings, gathering things along the way, so much so that I now don't use the starter ship and have a rule that I initially have to find and then repair the first crashed ship I come across instead, which to me is a lot of fun. Anyway, since I wander planets extensively and never pass up resource plants and always kill hazardous flora (which give oxygen), I have TONS of oxygen and other elements and compounds. I'm like a dragon sitting on a hoard. I currently have a storage container half-full of stacks of 10K oxygen, which is likely more than I'll ever need.

So, I don't understand how it can be hard to come by. Did something about this change in the game recently? I'm not watching hugely-old streams or anything. Maybe people just don't like exploring and gathering? I do know that oxygen can be used to increase yields when refining, so maybe people just use a lot more than I do, currently? I just don't know.

Anyway, I've recently learned that you can quick transfer stuff to other players in the Anomaly. I learned this when someone randomly gave me a bunch of nipnip buds. (Thanks, bro!) So, if oxygen is "hard to get," would it be appreciated if I dumped a full 10K stack of oxygen on random people from time to time, like some kind of demented Oxygen Fairy? Or would that be annoying? I've certainly got a surplus at the moment, of oxygen and many other elements, and since I spend most of my time just traveling between random systems and tromping around on planets, and occasionally doing missions, and am not terribly interested in following the storyline much or in acquiring units/nanites or a fleet of ships and stuff, I'm pretty sure I'll always be able to find all that I need, personally.

[Krash Megiddo]

Oxygen is no longer plentiful at the galactic trade terminals like it used to be. One of the first mines I setup is an oxygen mine for my main base. There are many ways to do this. My preferred way is to find an oxygen hotspot, setup a gas extractor/storage system. I always have a ready supply of 4000 oxygen to refine carbon and other stuff as needed.

As for giving away your excess oxygen in the anomaly... a few players might thank you for it while the rest will simply either curse you for it, dump it, or both.

[Unlucky]

Recently there were two changes both regarding difficulty and partially related to Oxygen.

First, depending on your 'Goods Availability' setting stores may or may not stock Oxygen now.
Second, depending on your 'Resource Abundance' setting you may get more, or less, materials from each object you mine or gather. This includes Oxygen as well as any other large-stack materials (Ferrite, Carbon, Sodium, etc).

Playing on Relaxed at the beginning would have also given you more materials and more opportunities to get Oxygen until you raised the difficulty on those settings.

That all said... not every player starts with those conditions nor do they roam the landscapes for hours looking for materials/Oxygen either. Many will often just leave planets shortly after getting what they came for.

Finally, like you stated, other players also used to use up a lot of Oxygen during refining to raise yields because it was easier to get than most other things. Now that it's harder to find some people have stopped doing that which means that they have to focus on hunting the materials they need for the process specifically, or else find extra Oxygen.

Edit: I agree it is not at all hard to come by on the majority of planets if you look for it. :)
I think there are still a few planets where it is still a little rare though...

[Felis_Exploria]

Most players are annoyed by random giveaways at anomaly. I suggest you find another use for it. And, resources have never been difficult to obtain once you learn what is needed in constant supply.

[Pagafyr]

Part of the game was getting a good business going selling high and buying low.
So if you sold a 9999 units of Oxygen at a Space Station for a lot of units; the next time you go to buy it at another space station you might find it really cheap.

I sold Storm Crystals when they were scarce and made a lot of Units for them.

[UncreativelyNamed]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

Oxygen is no longer plentiful at the galactic trade terminals like it used to be. One of the first mines I setup is an oxygen mine for my main base. There are many ways to do this. My preferred way is to find an oxygen hotspot, setup a gas extractor/storage system. I always have a ready supply of 4000 oxygen to refine carbon and other stuff as needed.

As for giving away your excess oxygen in the anomaly... a few players might thank you for it while the rest will simply either curse you for it, dump it, or both.

Ahhhh, that must be what they're talking about, then, that you can't buy it at terminals. I did see a video where someone was advising making/selling chlorine to make money by refining salt with oxygen, and I think they advised buying oxygen from traders on stations. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen traders with oxygen. So, OK, if someone doesn't enjoy just gathering stuff like I do, I guess that would make it harder to come by.

But, I guess I'll refrain from dumping oxygen on random people, then, unless I'm in a capricious mood. I do need to explore refining more, since I have piles of raw materials, so maybe I'll end up needing it for something other than charging life support, after all

[Krash Megiddo]

Originally posted by UncreativelyNamed:

But, I guess I'll refrain from dumping oxygen on random people, then, unless I'm in a capricious mood. I do need to explore refining more, since I have piles of raw materials, so maybe I'll end up needing it for something other than charging life support, after all

You are correct. With an excess of oxygen you should never be short of carbon or condensed carbon, just to mention a couple examples.
https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Oxygen#Refining

[UncreativelyNamed]

Originally posted by Unlucky:

Recently there were two changes both regarding difficulty and partially related to Oxygen.

First, depending on your 'Goods Availability' setting stores may or may not stock Oxygen now.
Second, depending on your 'Resource Abundance' setting you may get more, or less, materials from each object you mine or gather. This includes Oxygen as well as any other large-stack materials (Ferrite, Carbon, Sodium, etc).

That makes sense. I'm pretty sure I have "goods availability" set low but abundance normal because gathering stuff for myself is, apparently, My Thing. I don't want to just be able to buy stuff. I want to find stuff.

Playing on Relaxed at the beginning would have also given you more materials and more opportunities to get Oxygen until you raised the difficulty on those settings.

Oh, I don't have a save where I started on relaxed and then "moved up" in the same save. I started on relaxed, then when I had the basics down, I started a new save with a bit harder settings. When I understood more, I bumped the settings up again, started another new save, lather rinse repeat. I regarded the first handful of saves as "throw away" ones for learning purposes. I'm currently playing what I think will be my long-term save that I'll keep. Maybe. Otherwise, starting at relaxed and then increasing difficulty in the same save would feel like cheating to me, I agree.

Edit: I agree it is not at all hard to come by on the majority of planets if you look for it. :)
I think there are still a few planets where it is still a little rare though...

Yeah, like "Exotic" planets, which don't seem to have much of anything but look cool. :) I'm pretty sure one of those is where I'm going to build a perma-base in this save, just because I like how they look and I find I'm not all that fond of "paradise" planets. All that grass, yuck!

[UncreativelyNamed]

Originally posted by Pagafyr:

Part of the game was getting a good business going selling high and buying low.
So if you sold a 9999 units of Oxygen at a Space Station for a lot of units; the next time you go to buy it at another space station you might find it really cheap.

I sold Storm Crystals when they were scarce and made a lot of Units for them.

Yeah, I could crash the market on just about every raw material, if I had a mind to. I have tons of tritium, gold, silver, and platinum because I like shooting up asteroid fields and will do it for long periods of time. (Makes me feel like I'm a kid on my Atari 2600 again, playing Asteroids for hours.) Also, cyto-phosphate seems to sell for a lot, and I have tons of that, too, because I like swimming around in oceans and exploring underwater caves. I'm sure there's something it's used for, though, which I'll figure out eventually. :)

[Krash Megiddo]

Cyto-phosphate is in high demand because its a crafting component of the plant light source. This plant light just happens to be the brightest light source to light up our bases

[UncreativelyNamed]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

Cyto-phosphate is in high demand because its a crafting component of the plant light source. This plant light just happens to be the brightest light source to light up our bases

Maybe I should become the Cyto-Phosphate Fairy, then! I mean, I could sell it for a lot of units, I guess (because I can always get tons more if I want/need it), but I'm more of a communist at heart, so....

[Guyver8]

Pro-Tip: another easy way to get oxygen is to goto a planet with oceans and strafe a seabed with an infra-knife from your ship ...you'll get loads of oxygen very quickly

[taniwhat]

Find a paradise world, create a base near a gas deposit. Set up a gas mine, most likely it'll be oxygen. Problem solved forever. Use the chlorine cycle and a few refiners and your Unit problems also go away.

[FREEZED]

for serious needs of oxygen you should setup gas extractor to some hot spot, oxygen has use for refining stuff to get more out of some other materials.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by UncreativelyNamed:

Noob here! .... if oxygen is "hard to get,"

Hardly hard to get. Actually very easy, in mass quantities. Every single planet type, every one, has mineable O2. It's hard not to find. My very first base always has an O2 mine. But you are correct, it is one of the most important gases, hence the first one would want to be mined.

I usually stack supply depots in my first base so they equal 6K to 10K storage, seems to be the right amount without creating too much excess from the beginning of the game to late game. You usually can buy the blueprints for mining within the first hour or two of the game...whenever the Anomaly appears. I think you need about 70 salvage data modules to get every power generation and industrial mining blueprint there is, although some of the power generation stuff you can get following the starter quest.

At the start O2 is useful to me because it refines directly to Carbon (C). And then you can refine it in conjunction to the C you just created (or Condensed Carbon) to "breed" or "grow" Condensed Carbon...which you will need in mass quantities if you want to make the super high value trade goods.

By late game, 10K storage of it is starting to get a bit much, so I usually pare back the number of extractors to one so it doesn't fill as fast. Maybe pare back the number of supply depots, too.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Any gas or mineral you need a lot of, or regular supply, simply install the survey device tech and find a hot spot to place a base and mine the stuff. You can build as many as you like and return to collect deposits. They do not have to be complex, creative works of art.

As you explore, buy stuff from NPCs and space stations. Store it on ships or freighters for use later. You can also visit featured bases at the Anomaly or other player bases for any resources. It's all free if you stumble on something you need.