Building outposts is a huge feature in Starfield and you can start building almost immediately. Once you can explore the galaxy, you’ll be able to find a resource-rich planet and start mining for easy credits. Outposts can provide you with valuable resources you can use to expand your outpost or sell for passive income. If you’re eager to dive into this side of Starfield, here’s a quick tutorial to get you started.
More Starfield guides:
Best Skills | Best Ship Upgrades & Mods | All Companions | All Romance Options | All Settlement Locations | Join All Factions | How To Pirate Ships | Secret Companion | Secret Ship & Suit | Easter Egg Landmarks
Best Early Planets To Mine
Before beginning your mining operation, you’ll want to choose a good planet. Moons tend to be mineral rich with rare resources we can mine infinitely. To find the most valuable resources, scan your target planet (if you’ve unlocked the Planet Scanning skill) and search for Exotic Materials. Even if you haven’t unlocked Rank 3 Scanning we can still search planets that tend to have these rare materials.
- Andraphon, Moon of Sumati [Narion System]
- Grimsey [Narion System]
- Voss, Moon of Olivas [Alpha Centauri System]
Any of these planets / moons will have loads of useful resources to mine. To begin mining, you’ll need to create your first outpost.
For The Future | Finding Exotic Minerals
Don’t place an outpost until you find one of these types of valuable, Exotic minerals. Don’t worry about collecting them right now — we’ll aim for those later. At the start of your outpost, you won’t be able to mine these materials.
- Exotic Minerals | 3 Diamonds
- Plutonium [Pu]
- Europium [Eu]
- Ytterbium [Yb]
- Dysprosium [Dy]
- Antimony [Sb]
- Palladium [Pd]
These Exotic Tier minerals are by far the most worthwhile to mine for credits. They sell for a high price and can be mined infinitely if you can find a vein. Finding is much easier with Rank 3 Scanning. After scanning 2~ minerals on a planet, you’ll usually reveal what type of Exotic Mineral is available on the planet. When you find one of the Exotics, it’s time to start planting outposts.
Before Building | Getting Materials
Before we begin building, we’ll need lots of materials to actually construct a basic outpost. Here’s a quick rundown of what you’ll need.
- Simple Mining Outpost Materials:
- You’ll need the following resources for a small outpost with 1 Extractor, 1 Power, and 1 Storage.
- x13 Aluminum
- x11 Iron
- x3 Adaptive Frames
- x2 Tungsten
- x2 Beryllium
- x2 Copper
The Adaptive Frames can be crafted at any Industrial Workbench or purchased at a Trade Authority or other vendor. All of the materials you need can be purchased at the Trade Authority or other mineral / resource vendors. These types of vendors are found in every city.
- Resource Vendors:
- New Atlantis: Trade Authority in the Well, or the UC Distribution Center in the Commercial District.
- Neon: Trade Authority in the Neon Core, or the Mining League in the Neon Core.
All major settlements (and minor ones) have resource vendors. Make sure you talk to the actual NPC vendors to purchase resources — you can also mark resources you need for research or builds to make spotting it easier when exploring or when buying. I recommend buying everything you need if you don’t have it already — it’s fairly cheap.
Building Outposts For Ore
Once you’ve found a planet that contains an Exotic Mineral, you’re now ready to build an Outpost. We’ll start simple and slowly expand. You can plant x8 Outposts on a planet — if you unlock ranks in Planetary Habitation, you can build +16 more outposts at max rank.
- How To Build On A Planet: After landing on a planet, open the Scanner [LB] and then press the Outpost key. This allows you to place a free outpost — a large build area will appear.
- Make sure to place the outpost away from a named landmark. These have a 200 meter radius that does not allow building.
Choose a location with a common mineral we need. I recommend beginning mining Aluminum [Al] or Iron [Fe] — you’ll need lots of these materials to construct your mining operation. Moons typically also contain Helium-3 [HE-3] which we’ll also want to extract.
- Building Extractors
- To begin mining, you’ll want to select the Extractor tab. Select the Extractor you want and place it on the mineral field that appears when scanning — they appear green on the ground.
- Stary with one Extractor and slowly expand. Let’s get the first Extractor running. It won’t work until you get power.
Extractors require 4 Aluminum, 2 Tungsten and 5 Iron to build. They require 5 Power. Power is found in the Power tab and can be placed anywhere in the radius of your outpost. A Solar Array provides free power (no fuel) and generates 6 Power. One for each Extractor will keep your outpost going.
- Adding Power To Your Outpost
- Select the Power tab and construct a Solar Array or Fueled Generator. For now, a Solar Array will work fine.
- Solar Arrays require 4 Aluminum, 2 Beryllium, and 2 Copper to build.
- Wind Turbines can also be used on planets with atmosphere.
Now that your Extractor is running and has power, you’ll need somewhere to collect the minerals you extract. There are two types of containers you’ll want for mining.
- Storing Your Mined Minerals
- Select the Storage tab and select the Storage – Solid container. This bulk storage requires 5 Aluminum, 6 Iron and 3 Adaptive Frames. Once you have multiple Extractors running, you’ll be rolling in minerals.
Next, you’ll want to start upgrading. You’ve got the basics of an outpost ready, but if you want big money, you’ll want to get these upgrades as you expand.
How To Make More Money With Outposts
To really earn infinite credits with outposts, you’ll want to mine Exotic Minerals — that requires higher level Scanning and Outpost Engineering. You can slowly increase the size of your outpost and unlock new features (and structures) as you level up. Here’s a few tips for earning more cash.
- Unlock Scanning Rank 3 to easily find Exotic Resource Locations on a planet. One scan and you’ll spot the resources you want to mine.
- Rank up Outpost Engineering to build more advanced outpost structures.
- Rank up Geology for a chance to find and mine rare minerals, even when mining lower tier types.
- Unlock Robots 2 in the Research Laboratory to construct a Logistics Robot that increases Mineral Extraction by +10% — you’ll also need to rank up the Robotics Skill to earn it.
And finally, put some skill points in Commerce. Increase your earnings by improving your sales percentages — if you keep expanding your Outpost, even very early in the game, you’ll create an infinite source of constant revenue. You can build as many outposts as you want, and once you start collecting Iron, Aluminum and Helium-3 from your mining operations, you’ll be able to build more without any extra work.
