Stupid question - How do I find rare ore resources

[Jetkar]

I am new to playing this game on the starter map. How do u find rare ores such as cobalt and exotic resources

[ChumSickle]

Not a stupid question at all!

Most starter planets have just basic ores. You can get small amounts of them from raiding POIs and the like. But to find the ore in any quantity you will need to build an SV and take to the stars to find asteroids or the moon to locate deposits. The more rare types you will need a warp capable SV to explore other planets in your system, or a CV to warp to another system.

[j.mai]

Each planet,moon,asteroid have resources build SV, ore detector and go or looting some Zirtax bases

[mathaniel]

For just beginning and if you need "some", the light radiated areas have surface promethium and cobalt, to get you started(temperate planet?). Looka like dull green flatland with blackish veins along a map surface, with the alien thorns swaying in the non breeze lol. Highly radiated areas have the same, possibly a promethium vein. jmo but I find alien poi easier as they have internal enemies/guns. Zirax always seem to well guarded for me. Hard to give exact, help not knowing what level and what all a player has.This forum rocks.

[shdwdrvr83]

Since you're new, I'm going to assume you're on the temperate starter planet (each planet type has access to different ore types, with the temperate starter being the most basic/universal).

On the temperate starter world: There are ore deposits of iron, copper, silicon (the basic/easy ones), Prometheum (your primary late-game fuel), and a very small deposit of Gold (necessary for building the EVA armor mod, which you'll need in order to survive space.
You can also get surface rocks of the basics varying by biome, and in the Radiated biome you can get surface rocks of Prometheum, Cobalt, and Pentaxid.

That should be enough to get you into orbit. Once you hit space you can get to asteroids and the moon without needing to warp. Asteroids should be random so you might not get much in the starter system, but there's one tied to a story mission called 'Planetary Remnant' that's guaranteed to be there (assuming you're not using a modded version of the game). That asteroid has deposits of Prometheum, Pentaxid, Erestrum, and Zascocium.
Landing on the moon should open up access to Magnesium, potentially Titanium and some others. With these you should be able to build a small warp-capable SV and explore the other planets/asteroid fields in your system to get access to almost everything else.

That's all assuming that you're not doing any combat/salvaging/missions and want to play the game strictly by mining for resources.

By far the fastest way to get rare resources for building things in your factory is to scout your starter planet/sector for unarmed POIs.
Start by downloading a 'dump' blueprint from the workshop here- basically a blueprint that's pointless but requires massive amounts of all materials, so that you can constantly dump things you salvage into it without maxing out what it'll accept.
Build a few cores and a multitool/charges to carry around. Whenever you find a crashed ship that you can see thrusters on, put your core on it. Use the 'P' menu to see what devices the ship has (and highlight their locations if necessary) and start using the multitool with the 'retrieve blocks' function to pull all those devices off. A couple devices will more than pay you back for the core. You may find whole devices you want to keep (this is how I usually end up with my first advanced constructor and medical devices for my base), but most of the devices you can use to fill the blueprint factory. CV thrusters are a common thing to find, and have a lot of semi-rare materials in them (cobalt, neodynium, etc). CV weapons (not turrets, but actual mounted weapons) are even better, as they'll have erestrum/zascosium, which are the rarest materials in the game. Once you've removed all the devices, look at the hull. Is it Steel, Hardened Steel or Combat Steel? Regular steel isn't useful for much, as you'll quickly end up with more iron than you'll ever need. Hardened steel contains Titanium, while Combat steel contains Sathium. If you need those, start removing hull blocks. If you need silicon, pull the glass panes too.
If you're up for some first-person combat, another fantastic source is the 'Abandoned' POIs. They're infested with Aliens, but they don't have any anti-vehicle defense turrets, so even an early vehicle can get you to them. Once inside, prepare for a lot of fighting and some nasty traps, but they're full of cargo boxes with good stuff, loot containers with the rarest items in the game in them, and lots of devices that can be scrapped after you've fought your way through and destroyed the core. Just one of these will often give you enough materials to build a good quality SV or even early CV, as well as weapons, armor, and armor mods, and jump you right from the early game into the mid-late game in terms of what you're ready for.

Once you're in the late game and have a CV capable of interstellar flight, you'll get almost all your resources from mining asteroid fields, as the asteroids contain thousands of units of their type of ore, and all ores are available in asteroid form (some not in the starter system)

In summary -
If you want to build everything yourself, you can get the minimums necessary from ground deposits and rocks in radiated zones to get to space, get the rest from the moon/asteroids, and progress to interstellar asteroid mining.
If you're using the factory and building things from blueprints, scrap a few POIs on the starter planet and you'll have everything you need to jump right to that interstellar asteroid mining late-game portion.

[russak]

And if you want to build stuff yourself rather than have the Factory spawn it for you, once you have a Deconstructor (which you can build from stuff you loot, usually, or from salvage where you didn't/couldn't core the wreck), you can feed the same stuff to that as you would have to the Factory and get the raw materials (back to [steel|sathium] plate level, roughly) to put back into your Constructor.

[GlassDeviant]

Because of the wall of text I didn't read every post, so I don't know if this was mentioned.

You can find PoIs that are partial or complete shipwrecks. Take out any drones guarding them with a regular pistol, shouldn't take a full clip per drone if you are good with it, up to two if you aren't.

Now go to town on it with a multi-tool in "extract blocks" mode, so you can get the actual blocks, not (a portion of) the components it was made from. To do this you will need to place a Core of you own, which you can do right away with some PoIs, but others will require that you destroy an existing core before you place your own. This works with enemy PoIs as well but you'll have to fight the defenses in that case.

[shdwdrvr83]

Originally posted by Indifferent Orangutan:

Because of the wall of text I didn't read every post, so I don't know if this was mentioned.

You can find PoIs that are partial or complete shipwrecks. Take out any drones guarding them with a regular pistol, shouldn't take a full clip per drone if you are good with it, up to two if you aren't.

Now go to town on it with a multi-tool in "extract blocks" mode, so you can get the actual blocks, not (a portion of) the components it was made from. To do this you will need to place a Core of you own, which you can do right away with some PoIs, but others will require that you destroy an existing core before you place your own. This works with enemy PoIs as well but you'll have to fight the defenses in that case.

That was a covered in my wall of text, sorry.

[Ramar]

Originally posted by shdwdrvr83:

Since you're new, I'm going to assume you're on the temperate starter planet (each planet type has access to different ore types, with the temperate starter being the most basic/universal).

On the temperate starter world: There are ore deposits of iron, copper, silicon (the basic/easy ones), Prometheum (your primary late-game fuel), and a very small deposit of Gold (necessary for building the EVA armor mod, which you'll need in order to survive space.
You can also get surface rocks of the basics varying by biome, and in the Radiated biome you can get surface rocks of Prometheum, Cobalt, and Pentaxid.

That should be enough to get you into orbit. Once you hit space you can get to asteroids and the moon without needing to warp. Asteroids should be random so you might not get much in the starter system, but there's one tied to a story mission called 'Planetary Remnant' that's guaranteed to be there (assuming you're not using a modded version of the game). That asteroid has deposits of Prometheum, Pentaxid, Erestrum, and Zascocium.
Landing on the moon should open up access to Magnesium, potentially Titanium and some others. With these you should be able to build a small warp-capable SV and explore the other planets/asteroid fields in your system to get access to almost everything else.

That's all assuming that you're not doing any combat/salvaging/missions and want to play the game strictly by mining for resources.

By far the fastest way to get rare resources for building things in your factory is to scout your starter planet/sector for unarmed POIs.
Start by downloading a 'dump' blueprint from the workshop here- basically a blueprint that's pointless but requires massive amounts of all materials, so that you can constantly dump things you salvage into it without maxing out what it'll accept.
Build a few cores and a multitool/charges to carry around. Whenever you find a crashed ship that you can see thrusters on, put your core on it. Use the 'P' menu to see what devices the ship has (and highlight their locations if necessary) and start using the multitool with the 'retrieve blocks' function to pull all those devices off. A couple devices will more than pay you back for the core. You may find whole devices you want to keep (this is how I usually end up with my first advanced constructor and medical devices for my base), but most of the devices you can use to fill the blueprint factory. CV thrusters are a common thing to find, and have a lot of semi-rare materials in them (cobalt, neodynium, etc). CV weapons (not turrets, but actual mounted weapons) are even better, as they'll have erestrum/zascosium, which are the rarest materials in the game. Once you've removed all the devices, look at the hull. Is it Steel, Hardened Steel or Combat Steel? Regular steel isn't useful for much, as you'll quickly end up with more iron than you'll ever need. Hardened steel contains Titanium, while Combat steel contains Sathium. If you need those, start removing hull blocks. If you need silicon, pull the glass panes too.
If you're up for some first-person combat, another fantastic source is the 'Abandoned' POIs. They're infested with Aliens, but they don't have any anti-vehicle defense turrets, so even an early vehicle can get you to them. Once inside, prepare for a lot of fighting and some nasty traps, but they're full of cargo boxes with good stuff, loot containers with the rarest items in the game in them, and lots of devices that can be scrapped after you've fought your way through and destroyed the core. Just one of these will often give you enough materials to build a good quality SV or even early CV, as well as weapons, armor, and armor mods, and jump you right from the early game into the mid-late game in terms of what you're ready for.

Once you're in the late game and have a CV capable of interstellar flight, you'll get almost all your resources from mining asteroid fields, as the asteroids contain thousands of units of their type of ore, and all ores are available in asteroid form (some not in the starter system)

In summary -
If you want to build everything yourself, you can get the minimums necessary from ground deposits and rocks in radiated zones to get to space, get the rest from the moon/asteroids, and progress to interstellar asteroid mining.
If you're using the factory and building things from blueprints, scrap a few POIs on the starter planet and you'll have everything you need to jump right to that interstellar asteroid mining late-game portion.

Very nicely done!

[M]

I have a question regarding placing a core for retreiving materials by dismantling wrecks and POIs.

The heidelberg crash site, for example. I could loot the whole ship without having to place a core. for example, for the thrusters I got rare devices. so whats the thing about placing a core? I want that construction device intact. is it only possible to get the device that way and otherwise youll only get materials?

[mirasstone]

Originally posted by Mic:

I have a question regarding placing a core for retreiving materials by dismantling wrecks and POIs.

The heidelberg crash site, for example. I could loot the whole ship without having to place a core. for example, for the thrusters I got rare devices. so whats the thing about placing a core? I want that construction device intact. is it only possible to get the device that way and otherwise youll only get materials?

You only get the devises if you place a core and have claimed the build, I think there was a change but previously you had to set the build to private (from puplic when initially clamed) in the menue.
But without a player core youll just get parts and not the devise.
Dont forget to put youre multitool to the apropriate setting too.

[M]

Originally posted by mirasstone:

But without a player core youll just get parts and not the devise.
Dont forget to put youre multitool to the apropriate setting too.

thx a lot for this hint.

[Ramar]

Originally posted by Scooby:

Ramar though I am a veteran player I can tell you that everything you need for a small starter CV is there in the starter area. I have done this starting in the HARD Snow start with ease. There is no reason to think that the easy start would not have even more to choose from. Keep in mind (SP) that you want to core the wreck and you can get the device off it to put on your own build. HIGHLY recommend not using the factory for that first CV. Just make a box like ship large enough for your SV/HV. Cargo for what you have and go. Note that there is also wrecks in orbit near the POL Minefield. The mines are not terribly dangerous but keep you distance which is very easy. Again core the wrecks to get best result.

Also keep in mind that POI like the Abandoned Legacy ones have generators and other advance base items. Defeat them and just break those down for the components needed for your warp core. Then the Moon will have the Pentaxid (warp fuel) to get you out of there. The Warp SV is a way to go but in my opinion the long way. Often though your start Workshop ships are teeming with needless things so I avoid them for the start.

I'm getting old, so I recognize how slow I'm getting. :) However, I'm not catching onto why you posted this. I appreciate the info, however, all I did was congratulate someone who did a very nice job giving details. I do agree with you too. It isn't that hard to get off the planet. And if you grow to the story line, you'll be on the moon before your ready and know where the rare ores are you need to further.

So there are different ways of making it. Just takes time. :)

[Ramar]

Originally posted by mirasstone:

Originally posted by Mic:

I have a question regarding placing a core for retreiving materials by dismantling wrecks and POIs.

The heidelberg crash site, for example. I could loot the whole ship without having to place a core. for example, for the thrusters I got rare devices. so whats the thing about placing a core? I want that construction device intact. is it only possible to get the device that way and otherwise youll only get materials?

You only get the devises if you place a core and have claimed the build, I think there was a change but previously you had to set the build to private (from puplic when initially clamed) in the menue.
But without a player core youll just get parts and not the devise.
Dont forget to put youre multitool to the apropriate setting too.

Quick question on that: Do I have to find and destroy the core on the ship first, or just set mine down on the ship?

[mirasstone]

Originally posted by Ramar:

Quick question on that: Do I have to find and destroy the core on the ship first, or just set mine down on the ship?

You have to get the core out first (if it has one, just try to place youre own, if it doesnt work there is already one in it)