Starfield offers a sandbox style experience of pure survival mode against being Encumbered, or suffering from effects such as Lung Damage whilst having the pure freedom to craft structures and farm Resources. Acting as a full cycle of harvesting – through powering your Outpost with Helium or Solar, to extending the land of which you own by dropping the Pioneer on it via Iron and Aluminium. There is a lot to harvest in Starfield to make your life a little easier and more fulfilling. Whilst you can spend your time hopping onto every planet are harvesting with your hands or the Cutter, time is of the essence when mining these goods.
As you do not want to be spending hours on end searching for Iron or Aluminium in your travels. Therefore, it is time to set up shop and build yourself an Outpost Farm, this is Vincent’s guide on how to build one in Starfield.
What Do You Need to Build an Outpost Farm?
There is a lot of creative freedom and opportunity when it comes to what Outpost you want to use. Regardless of which Planet you are visiting (so long as it is habitable) you can create any Outpost that fulfils your daily needs. Whatever you want to prioritize in your playthrough, be it gardening for Flora and its Resources, farming Water or extracting minerals straight from the ground and pumping out constant Outpost, gear and weapon resources to make your life a whole lot easier, everything begins with the Outpost Build we are going to demonstrate below.
When starting your Outpost, we recommend visiting Vendors from major cities and purchasing a ton of Resources from them so you are not travelling far and wide to pick up different materials that are often scattered across the solar systems. Keep in mind that each Planet offer different Resources and some may have a plethora of Resources to harvest, whilst others only house a few, more commonly seen materials that may not be worth your time. However, these are what you need to get started:
- Adaptive Frame – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), Wen Tseng (New Atlantis, Jemison), and Zoe Kaminsky (Trade Authority, New Atlantis, Jemison).
- Aluminium – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), and Saburo Okadugbo (Neon).
- Beryllium – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), and Wen Tseng (New Atlantis, Jemison).
- Copper – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), Saburo Okadugbo (Neon), and Wen Tseng (New Atlantis, Jemison).
- Iron – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), Saburo Okadugbo (Neon), and Wen Tseng (New Atlantis, Jemison).
- Tungsten – Amoli Bava (New Atlantis, Jemison), Dietrich Sieghart (Sieghart’s Outfitters, Neon), Saburo Okadugbo (Neon), and Wen Tseng (New Atlantis, Jemison).
Related: How to Pick Up and Move Items Around in Starfield.
Where to Build Your Farm
Now that you have the specific build materials needed, you need to find the Planet you want to harvest and strip clean of its Resources available. This method is far quicker and more efficient than simply using the Scanner and Cutter method after getting 100% Survey Scan of the Planet you have landed on. When you have found the Resource you are looking for by referring to the Starmap Planet Overview, you should land on the biome with the color corresponding to the material’s symbol. Once you have landed, use the Scanner and look for the Resource icon to appear around the Scanner cursor that will show you if you are in the right place. Next, drop in a Outpost Beacon to get started. Refer to how many Resources you can successfully mine before placing the Outpost down (top-left of your in-game screen when choosing the Beacon’s placement).
How to Build an Outpost Farm to Harvest Large Amounts of Resources in Starfield
Depending on what you want to take out of the ground to use as a power source/ building material, Iron (i.e., Cargo Link) or Water (i.e., Greenhouse), these need their corresponding Extractor. Remember that Iron can only be placed in specific spots on a biome whilst Water can be found anywhere where Flora is present. In the case of making Storage Containers (Solid) to harvest specific Resources, you will need a lot of Iron to farm as a Build Requirement Resource. To get structures to function, you will need either Solar Arrays or Wind Turbines, we recommend Solar for most Planets. Adding more than 1 help increase your total power, churning out more Resources at a faster rate.
To make sure that everything is working correctly, be sure to link all of the structures together. In the case of farming Iron, you will need to link the Solar Array to the Iron Extractor and then to the Solid Storage Container(s). Cargo Links are incredibly helpful to link different Outpost Storage Units together, allowing you to dip into your Resources from other Planets where you have an Outpost set up.
Outside of Iron, when you are trying to gather Resources in a large quantity, any time you want to place an Extractor down, you will need to put it directly on top of where the Resource is located. This will then be extracted directly out of the Extractor, placed into your Solid or Gas Storage (based on what you are harvesting by linking these together) which can then be transferred either to another Outpost (Cargo Link) or placed into your Personal Inventory. To increase the Resources you harvest within a given time, you can add Crew Stations, Robots, and Benches. Adding more Storage Containers and linking them to one another will stop you from having to visit the Planet so frequently to pick up harvested Resources and putting an end to any overflow.
That was our full guide on how to make a Farm in Starfield. For more on this game, be sure to browse our GJ Starfield Section here. Thank you for reading this guide, we hope it proved helpful in your adventures.
