How to Use Metal Farms in Subnautica 2

5 hours ago 2

Published May 17, 2026, 7:58 PM EDT

Laurence Wall is a Staff Writer at DualShockers who has been writing professionally since 2022 and covering games since 2023. He primarily writes guides and lists, with a focus on indie games, RPGs, ARPGs, Soulslikes, MMOs, card games, boss fights, and detailed tutorials.

Before joining DualShockers, Laurence worked as a game reviewer for Movies, Games and Tech. He also co-founded and served as a contributor liaison for a university creative writing magazine, where he was one of the publication’s principal contributors. Laurence holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

So, you’ve reached the endgame of Subnautica 2 (so far), and you’ve spent the majority of your Troilite crafting Mangalloy Ingots. Perfectly normal. That turbine won’t repair itself after all!

However, you’ve come back to your base, only to realise that you barely have any Troilite left. Well, no problem, you can just head back to the northeast chemical area and grab some more, right? Wrong!

Subnautica 2: Where to Find Troilite

In the depths, no one can hear you scream...

Troilite and the Axum Bacterial Culture are pretty big oversights in the early access of Subnautica 2. They are strictly limited in their quantity, meaning that once you’ve used the ones available, you can’t mine any more, as unlike other resource nodes, these don’t grow back.

So, how do we remedy this? Metal Farms, of course! Let’s get into it.

Metal Farms are extremely easy to find once you reach the eastern areas of Subnautica 2. You’ll find these all over the northern Root Canyon area, where the yellow-green glow seems to be emanating from. However, to reach these depths, you’re going to need the depth module for your Tadpole.

Try to approach this area from below, hovering around the 400-450m depth. A Collector Leviathan patrols overhead, but it can’t seem to detect you if you’re swimming underneath.

The Metal Farms are those large vertical machines that stick up from the ground. Simply swim over and scan 3 of them to add the blueprint to your crafting menu. This new blueprint can be found under the cultivation tab on the far right of the Habitat Builder menu. While you're there, make sure you’ve mined every single piece of Troilite and the Axum Bacterial Culture available.

Where to Use a Metal Farm

While I originally believed that you need to be in a specific area to mine that kind of ore, that isn’t the case at all.

The Metal Farm can be placed anywhere, so long as it’s connected to power, and you have placed the ore you want to generate in the farm's storage. And yes, I have tested this. Firstly, I created a Metal Farm in the north-east Root Canyon, with Troilite inside, by connecting it to Thermal Plants in the nearby volcanic area. Of course, the machine worked flawlessly.

Next, I created another Metal Farm and took it back to my main base, located near the Alien Base further to the west, where no Troilite naturally spawns. I simply added a piece of Troilite, connected to some Turbines, and once more, it worked like a charm.

Location has no impact on material generation, so place it wherever you wish.

To create a Metal Farm, you’ll need the following materials:

1x Mangalloy Ingot
1x Axum Bacterial Culture

The way the Metal Farm works is that it digs up materials based on the ore that you place inside and produces nodes for you to collect. This is how we’re going to generate extra Troilite.

Always keep at least one piece of Troilite to place inside the farm. If you use all the Troilite, or happen to lose it, you cannot obtain more!

So, you’ve set up your Metal Farm near your base. Now you’ll need to connect it to 20 units worth of power. This can easily be done simply by using two Underwater Turbines or two Thermal Plants.

Find a steady stream of flowing water or a thermal vent, and place your generators within range. Now you can either place the Metal Farm directly next to the generators, or use some Power Transmitters to transfer the energy if your source is a bit far away.

Now, all you need to do is place your chosen ore in the storage compartment, and the machine will be good to go. Once you see a timer start a countdown, you can simply leave the machine to do its work.

Once the timer is up, you’ll notice a large resource deposit sticking up from the top of the Metal Farm. Simply blast it with your chosen Resonator to obtain the ore within, and then the mining countdown will begin again.

Materials and Time Limits

While it would be nice to create a whole field of Metal Farms, we are currently limited by the number of Axum bacterial cultures available.

In my case, I only got around four Cultures out of a total of five available. One of my Cultures fell through the floor as I was trying to grab it and is now lost in the void. I can see it with the Scanner, but I can’t reach it, so be careful when grabbing your resources.

In any case, each ore has a different generation time. Low value ores, like Titanium and Copper, have a short time, while higher value ores like Troilite and Atacamite have a far longer time. Here’s a list of ores and their respective time to generate:

2 Minutes: Titanium, Copper, Salt, Quartz
10 Minutes: Sulfur, Lithium, Silver, Gold, Conduit Crystal, Create Enamel, Celestine
20 Minutes: Troilite, Atacamite

While 20 minutes might be a pretty long wait, with a total of five possible Metal Farms going at once, you can get quite a lot of Troilite quite quickly. In addition, it seems random how many ores you get from mining these deposits. Most of the time, you will get one Troilite, but you can also obtain two on occasion.

Chances are, the developers will change all the information provided here as Early Access continues, but for now, this is as good as you’re going to get.