How to Find Rare Materials in Starfield

For those looking to make the most out of the raw materials gathered of planets’ surfaces, you will need to put in a lot of thought so that your efforts are not made null by a lack of care placed in your ship’s features. Many resources can be found through mining the planets but a lot cannot simply be mined due to your Ship’s skills that you need to upgrade and enable. These are the rare materials you can find when surveying the planet you have travelled close to, to mine. But how do you get these rarer materials across your intergalactic travels? This is Vincent’s guide on everything you need to know on how to mine rare resources in Starfield.

What You Need to Scan For Rare Materials in Starfield

In Starfield, you cannot simply head to any planet and assume that everything is up for grabs. You will need to put some time and effort into your ship and its abilities. In the case of mining, you can use the Cutter to get resources off the face of the planet’s surface but it does come with its limits. When starting the game, you will not be able to mine the rare materials. These are distinctly different to common materials as they appear on the right-hand side under the Resources Tab with dots in the top-right corner of their element name and icon. The dots represent the rarity of the resource and whether or not you have a high enough skill to be able to mine it out of the planet itself.

Whilst common resources are outlined in biomes on the planet overview before you land, rare materials are not. Because of this, you will need specific items in order to mine successfully in Starfield. You will want to increase your chances of pulling more resources from the Cutter via finding them using the Scanner by choosing the Geology Skill for your character.

Related materials location guides: Titanium and Silver.

Where to Find Rare Materials

When surveying the planet, use the Scanner to tell you where any nearby POIs (points of interests) are which can help you in finding those Legendary Resources. These will likely appear in Caves above all else so be on the lookout for these. When you are searching for these resources to complete your Planet Survey, you need to search for anything with a blue outline/hue to it. These dictate what you have not scanned/ found in your exploration of the planet. There are multiple POI icons – Heartbeat and Location Pins which reveal landmarks where resources can be found inside. Going here first can help you find the resources you need.

The hunt for rarer materials is much longer than finding anything common due to having no clear indication on where to start when looking for rare resources as they are not highlighted by the biomes in the Planet Overview, unlike the common Resources which show up on the planet before you land. Because of this, you should focus on 100% completing the Planet Survey using the Scanner so that you can see just how many resources you have found off the Resource List and using this to determine where any Rare, Exotic and Legendary minerals are. Remember that when you find the rarer materials, you use the Cutter to harvest them and place into your Inventory to take with you.

Ready for the ultimate intergalactic adventure and need a bit of starting help to guide you into the unknown? Be sure to check out all new GJ coverage at our Starfield section. Thank you for reading this guide, we hope it helps!