Once Human: How to Get Energy Link Early

Energy Link pays for almost everything in Once Human, and the fastest early source is not combat. It is rock. Gold Ore and Silver Ore turn into ingots that settlement vendors buy for thousands of Energy Link each. A single trip to a polluted zone can fill most of a week’s vendor allowance.

Quick answer: Unlock Electric Furnace and Precious Metal Refining, mine Gold Ore and Silver Ore inside red Stardust pollution zones, smelt ingots, then sell them to a vendor like Weber in Deadsville.

Energy Link value of Gold and Silver Ingots

Gold is the one to chase. Each Gold Ingot is worth three Silver Ingots at the vendor counter, so a small stack of gold covers a large share of the weekly limit on its own.

Ingot	Price each	Example sale
Gold Ingot	12,000 Energy Link	14 ingots = 168,000
Silver Ingot	4,000 Energy Link	30 ingots = 120,000

Vendor prices can move between patches and seasons. Silver in particular has been listed higher than 4,000 at other points, so check the Sell tab for the number your vendor shows before you plan a full haul.

Weber’s sell screen shows a Selling Limit: 200000 that refreshes weekly. Anything past that cap will not convert to Energy Link until the reset, so stockpile extra ingots instead of overselling.

Memetics and gear needed for ingot farming

All three formulas sit in the Production branch of the Memetics tech tree. The first two are mandatory. The drill enhancement is optional, but it doubles what every precious ore node gives you.

Electric Furnace: the station that smelts the ingots.
Precious Metal Refining: the formula that lets the furnace make Gold Ingot and Silver Ingot.
Electric Rock Drill with its Advanced Tech enhancement: +100% yield on Gold Ore, Silver Ore, and Stardust Ore when mined with an Electric Drill.

For the tool itself, the Electric Rock Drill has 1,000 durability and 550 mining efficiency. The Solar Drill also has 1,000 durability and recharges itself in sunny weather. Its built-in 15% yield bonus only covers Copper Ore, Iron Ore, and Tungsten Ore, so the enhanced Electric Rock Drill is the better pick for precious metals.

Required Mining Tools — Check your drill before heading out: the Solar Drill's bonus applies to common ores, not gold or silver. Shown at 00:48 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Food adds one more multiplier. Canned Seafood in Oil restores 100 Energy and grants Stroke of Luck for 1,800 seconds. While it is active, the final strike on a node has a chance to add a 66%, 666%, or 6666% yield bonus when mining or logging. Eat one right before you start breaking nodes so the full 30 minutes goes into ore.

How to farm Energy Link with Gold Ore and Silver Ore

Open the world map and look for zones outlined in red. These Stardust pollution areas appear across several regions, including Red Sands, Iron River, Chalk Peak, and Broken Delta.

Map Locations for Pollution Zones — Red zones on the world map mark the Stardust pollution areas where gold and silver veins appear. Shown at 00:26 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Travel to the nearest red zone and cross its glowing boundary wall. You are inside when the message “The Stardust pollution is getting worse…” appears on screen.

Eat Canned Seafood in Oil, then mine every Gold Ore and Silver Ore vein you find with your Electric Rock Drill. A motorcycle makes it much quicker to sweep the zone between deposits.

Mining Gold and Silver Nodes — Precious ore deposits glow, which makes them easier to pick out while riding through a pollution zone. Shown at 01:25 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Return to your territory and open the Electric Furnace. Queue Gold Ingot and Silver Ingot until your ore is used up.

Smelting Ingots at Electric Furnace — Precious Metal Refining adds Gold Ingot and Silver Ingot to the Electric Furnace's recipe list. Shown at 01:40 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Open the world map and teleport to a settlement camp with a shop vendor. Deadsville, Meyer’s Market, and Greywater Camp all appear on the map as travel points.

Fast Travel to Settlement Vendor — Settlements can be reached instantly from the map with the Teleport option. Shown at 01:53 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Talk to the shop vendor, such as Weber in Deadsville, and switch to the Sell tab. Sell your Gold Ingots first, since they carry the most value per slot against the weekly limit.

Selling Ingots for Energy Link — The Sell tab shows both the ingots in your bag and how much of the weekly selling limit is left. Shown at 02:30 in HeRo Survival Guides’s video. Image: Starry Studio

Confirming the Energy Link payout

A successful sale shows up in two places at once. Your Energy Link balance climbs by the ingot price times the number sold, so 14 Gold Ingots add 168,000. At the same time, the vendor’s selling limit counter drops by the same amount. When that counter hits zero, the week’s allowance is spent, and the next batch of ingots waits in storage until the refresh.