Quartz is one of the highest-volume materials in Subnautica 2, feeding glass panels, base windows, the Scanner, the Habitat Builder, and system chips. Almost every blueprint that lets you leave the lifepod or expand a base eats into your quartz stock, so knowing where it spawns reliably matters more than chasing rare ores early.
Quick answer: Quartz spawns inside the orange, rust-colored coral domes scattered across the shallow starting biome around your lifepod. Break the loose chunks on the outside, then swim inside the larger domes and harvest the embedded crystals piece by piece.
What quartz looks like in Subnautica 2
Quartz appears as pale, semi-translucent crystals with a faint white or pink sheen. In the open it shows up as small, sharp clusters resting on the sandy seabed, often next to titanium outcrops. The richest spawns, however, are not on the open floor. They grow inside coral domes, which are hollow, dome-shaped coral structures with a rusty orange exterior.
Two coral dome types matter for farming:
- Small clumps with a single visible chunk of quartz on the outside that you can break off with the Survival Multitool.
- Large hollow domes you can swim into, where multiple crystals are embedded along the inner walls.
Best quartz farming locations near the lifepod
You do not need to travel far. The shallow coral biome immediately around your starting lifepod has the densest concentration of coral domes in the early game. Quartz is described as being available in abundance in this zone, which is the same area where you gather your first titanium and copper for the Scanner and Habitat Builder.
The table below summarizes where to focus a quartz run by progression stage.
| Area | Where to look | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Shallow coral biome (around the lifepod) | Orange coral domes on the sandy floor | Primary early-game farm. Mixed with titanium and copper. |
| Cave directly below the lifepod | Coral dome clusters near the entrance | Pairs well with copper and Acidic Raion Pouch runs. |
| Kelp-style outer biomes | Coral domes between creepvine-like growth | Useful as a top-up while scanning for fragments. |
| Warmer zones near thermal activity | Coral domes alongside salt crystal nodes | Higher density, but requires heat tolerance to reach safely. |
Stick to the shallow coral biome until you have a Habitat Builder, a base, and a Seaglide-equivalent. The deeper warm zones contain larger quartz fields, but reaching them safely depends on later mutation and depth upgrades.
How to harvest a coral dome efficiently
Step 1: Craft the Survival Multitool from three titanium at your lifepod fabricator. The multitool is the harvesting tool for coral, ore, and the Acidic Raion Pouches you will pass on the way.
Step 2: Swim to the nearest cluster of orange coral domes. Hit the external quartz chunk first to get the easy pickup, then break the thinner coral around any visible embedded crystal until the quartz drops free.
Step 3: Enter the larger hollow domes. Inside, sweep the multitool across every embedded crystal on the inner walls. A single large dome typically yields several quartz in one visit.
Step 4: Mark or remember the dome cluster. Resources respawn after you leave the area and return, so a repeatable loop between two or three nearby clusters is more efficient than searching for new domes every trip.
Tip: Keep an empty locker dedicated to quartz inside your base. Glass, windows, and wiring-adjacent recipes consume it in stacks, and in co-op the shared demand climbs quickly.
How much quartz to stockpile early
The minimum early-game quartz budget is driven by three crafts. The Scanner needs two quartz, the Habitat Builder needs four quartz, and a basic base with a fabricator window and a few corridor segments will pull several more on top of that. Aiming for around 15 to 20 quartz before your first base build avoids backtracking.
| Craft | Quartz required | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| Scanner | 2 | Pre-base |
| Habitat Builder | 4 | Pre-base |
| System chip (with silver and copper wire) | Quartz component | Mid early-game |
| Glass and base windows | High, recurring | Throughout |
Once your first base is up and a solar panel is feeding power, quartz becomes a passive routine rather than an expedition. Loop the same two or three coral dome clusters near the lifepod, top up the dedicated locker each time you pass, and the material will stop being a bottleneck for glass, windows, and electronics work later on.