How Metal Farms Work in Subnautica 2

Ever want to have your own farm? Want to plant seeds or grow animals? Well, Subnautica 2 is not that type of game. With that said, it doesn’t mean there are ways to farm items through efficient means.

One of them happens to be metal farming. Throughout your lengthy adventures on the oceanic planet of Proteus, you will come across various minerals that are meant for mining. You will be able to take these items and craft various tools with them, but sometimes finding good spots to farm items is difficult. Thankfully, with this handy tool, you can sit idly by and let the machine do all the work.

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By Adam Beck

What is a Metal Farm?

A Metal Farm is one of the most efficient ways to passively obtain minerals from around the open sea without actually having to go far. Normally, you’d have to track and remember where to get a specific type of mineral, as there are very specific locations for each stone, but with Metal Farms, you’re able to set something up anywhere in the world – preferably at your base and obtain it passively.

As the name suggests, this is a farm that grows homemade minerals. It’s more of a cloning device more than anything. When it’s created and placed, you’re able to put in a specific type of mineral (only rock-based, such as troilite, gold, sulfur, etc.) and the device will begin making it.

There is a caveat, though. Depending on which mineral you put in the device, the more time it will take to create it and how much it will give you:

Mineral	Time	Yield
Titanium	2 Minutes	x5
Copper	2 Minutes	x3
Quartz	2 Minutes	x3
Salt	2 Minutes	x3
Silver	10 Minutes	x3
Lead	10 Minutes	x3
Sulfur	10 Minutes	x3
Gold	10 Minutes	x3
Celestine	10 Minutes	x3
Lithium	10 Minutes	x2
Creature Enamel	10 Minutes	x2
Conduit Crystal	10 Minutes	x2
Atamacite	20 Minutes	x2
Troilite	20 Minutes	~x2

How to Create a Metal Farm

A Metal Farm is a single Cultivation item that can be built with the Habitat Tool outside your base. At the current time, there can only be five Metal Farm items that can be crafted, only because resources are limited with no respawning of one specific material.

We are, of course, talking about Axum Bacteria. This is found all the way at the end of the game in the almost atomic-looking fields where the alien species has set up their own little metal farm – just with much larger devices.

Metal Farm Recipe: Mangalloy Ingot x1 + Axum Bacterial Culture x1

Here, on the bottom floor of the sea and in the green pools, you’ll find upwards of five Axum Bacteria materials to be cracked open and collected. On top of that, be sure to scan the Metal Farm devices scattered throughout the area. You need to scan three, but thankfully, each large structure counts as one.

Once you do so, you’re able to head back to your habitat and craft a Metal Farm and place it next to a power source. At this point, you can place a single mineral inside the device, and it will display how much time is left before it’s finished.

It should be noted that you must manually destroy these Metal Farms to collect your yield. There will be what looks like a rod sticking out of the bottom and when it’s done, it will be pointing to the sky. Destroy that part with a Resonator and you will collect whatever mineral you put in it, and the cycle will repeat itself.

This is a very good way to farm materials passively as you play the game, although since this is primarily found at the end of the current Early Access stage, you might already be done with the save. Regardless, this is the way to create and use a Metal Farm.