The Metal Farm in Subnautica 2 turns base-building into passive ore collection. Once placed and powered, it grows resource nodes on top of itself based on whichever ore you seed into its internal slot, letting you crack open a fresh batch of minerals every few minutes instead of swimming out to scavenge.
Find the Metal Farm blueprint
The Metal Farm sub-zone sits a long way out from your starting Lifepod. Head east about 2,100 meters, or roughly 850 meters from the Alien Ruins marker if you've already pushed that deep into the campaign. You'll know you've arrived when you see a large glowing pool ringed by tall, cylindrical metallic structures.
Build a Tadpole submarine before making the trip. It cuts travel time significantly and absorbs damage from hostile fauna, including the Epicurean fish swarms and the Leviathan that patrols the area. Without a vehicle, you're a soft target on a long swim.
Step 1: Pilot your Tadpole east from the Lifepod toward the Metal Farms zone. Watch your depth and oxygen, and steer wide of any Leviathan silhouettes before exiting the sub.
Step 2: Equip your scanner and scan the tall vertical structures surrounding the glowing pool. You may need up to three scans of distinct objects to complete the blueprint, depending on which structures you tag first.
Step 3: Watch for the "Metal Farm unlocked" notification. The blueprint will now appear inside the Habitat Builder under the Cultivation tab.
Gather the crafting materials
Each Metal Farm costs 1 Mangalloy Ingot and 1 Axum Bacterial Culture. The bacterial culture is easy. The ingot takes a detour through the Processor.
| Material | Source |
|---|---|
| Axum Bacterial Culture | Round organic growths inside the glowing pool at the Metal Farms zone |
| Mangalloy Ingot | Crafted at the Processor from 1 Titanium Ingot + 1 Atacamite + 1 Troilite |
| Titanium Ingot | Processor recipe, 3 Titanium per ingot |
| Atacamite | Obsidian-black star-shaped deposits near the Alien Base, around the Angel Bloom Adaptation area and the giant turbine |
| Troilite | Deep-green ore nodes scattered around the same glowing pool |
While you're at the pool grabbing the bacterial culture, mine the green Troilite nodes on the same trip. It saves a return swim.
Build and power the Metal Farm
Once you have the Mangalloy Ingot and Axum Bacterial Culture in your inventory, head back to your base or wherever you plan to drop the farm.
Step 1: Equip the Habitat Builder, open the build menu, and navigate to the Cultivation tab. Select Metal Farm and place it on a solid submerged surface.
Step 2: Connect it to a power source. Each Metal Farm draws 20 units of electricity while running, so a Hydroelectric Turbine or a cluster of generators is the practical baseline. If the farm sits too far from your grid, drop a Power Transmitter to bridge the gap.
Step 3: Confirm power is flowing. If the farm displays a "power offline" warning, the timer will not start until you fix the connection.
Run the farm and collect ore
The Metal Farm doesn't pick a resource at random. You tell it what to grow by inserting one piece of that ore into its internal storage slot. That seed ore defines the output for the cycle.
Step 1: Interact with the base of the farm to open its storage. Drop in a single piece of the ore you want more of, such as Titanium, Quartz, Lithium, Silver, Atacamite, Celestine, or Troilite.
Step 2: Watch the timer appear on the front of the unit. Cheaper materials finish in around 2 minutes, mid-tier ores take roughly 10 minutes, and rarer ones run up to 20 minutes per cycle. The filter on the bottom slowly rises as the cycle progresses, giving you a visual cue.
Step 3: When the timer hits zero, a node grows on top of the farm. Hit it with the Sonic Resonator or Feedback Resonator to shatter it and collect the ore. The timer then resets automatically and starts a new cycle using the same seed.
Yields and cycle times
Output quantity scales inversely with rarity. Common metals come out in stacks of five; harder-to-find materials drop two per cycle.
| Tier | Cycle time | Yield per cycle |
|---|---|---|
| Common (fastest tier) | 2:00 | 5 per cycle (top entry); 3 for other 2-minute recipes |
| Mid-tier | 10:00 | 2 to 3 depending on the ore |
| High-tier | 20:00 | 2 per cycle |
If you want a steady pipeline of a specific resource, build multiple farms side by side and seed each one differently. The 20-energy-per-farm cost adds up fast, so plan your power generation before you start stacking units.
If the farm isn't producing
Only a handful of issues actually stop a Metal Farm from working. If your timer never starts or won't advance, check these in order:
- No seed ore in the internal slot. The farm needs one valid mineral to define the recipe.
- Insufficient power. Anything under 20 units of available electricity will pause the timer.
- Invalid item in the slot. Bacterial cultures, biological samples, and most non-metal items are rejected. Stick to ores and metals.
- The node is still on top. Until you break the grown crystal with a resonator, the next cycle can't start.
Subnautica 2 is in early access, so recipes, yields, and zone layouts may shift with future updates. The core loop, scan to unlock, seed to choose, power to run, and resonate to harvest, is the part you can build your base economy around.