If you’ve logged any hours in No Man’s Sky’s 2026 Worlds Unbound update, you’ve probably seen other players showing off high-tier exosuit upgrades and multi-tool modifications you can’t buy at space stations. The secret behind most of these rare unlocks? Buried technology caches scattered across almost every terrestrial planet in the galaxy. I’ve spent the last three months grinding these caches to fully kit out my freighter and expedition team, so I’m breaking down exactly how to find buried technology in No Man's Sky without wasting hours wandering empty terrain.
Prep Your Gear Before Hunting for Buried Technology
You don’t need endgame gear to start farming these caches, but a few basic upgrades will cut your grind time in half. The Analysis Visor level 2 upgrade is non-negotiable; the 2026 update adjusted this tool to mark buried tech within 200u, double the range of the base model. You can grab the blueprint for this upgrade from the Nexus quest board for only 500 nanites, which is one of the best early-game investments you can make.
Next, make sure your Terrain Manipulator has a full power charge and efficiency upgrade. Digging through rock and dirt uses charge fast, and nothing sucks more than breaking your tool mid-dig when you’re 10 minutes from your ship. Stock up on ferrite dust before you land to make quick repairs if needed. You’ll also want a jetpack boost upgrade for your exosuit, so you can climb hills and cover long stretches of terrain without wasting time walking. Once you have all that gear, you’re ready to start hunting for buried technology without running into avoidable setbacks.
If you’re playing in survival mode, throw on a basic hazard protection upgrade too. Some of the best planets for buried tech caches have extreme heat or radiation, and you don’t want to have to run back to your ship every 5 minutes to recharge your shields.
Pick the Right Planets to Maximize Buried Technology Spawns
Not every planet is created equal when it comes to buried tech spawn rates. The 2026 update reworked spawn logic so that planets with ancient civilization traces have far more caches than barren or dead worlds. Taking time to pick the right planet can double or triple the number of buried technology caches you find per hour, so it’s worth spending 2 minutes scanning the system before you land. Look for these key traits when choosing a farming spot:
I once tried to farm caches on a high-sentinel volcanic planet, and I spent more time fighting drones than actually digging. It’s not worth the hassle, even if the caches there have slightly higher rare drop rates. If you find a planet with a colonial outpost, you can often buy maps to buried tech sites from the NPC merchant inside for 1,000 units each, that’s a steal if you have extra units to burn.
Avoid dead planets, frozen gas giant moons, and uncharted worlds with no recorded civilization activity. These have less than 10% of the spawn rate of ancient planets, so you’ll waste hours looking for a single cache.
Use These In-Game Tricks to Find Buried Technology Faster
Once you land on a good planet, there are a few simple tricks to locate caches faster than random wandering. First, climb to the highest point near your landing spot, activate your analysis visor, and sweep slowly across the landscape. The buried tech markers will pop up as small grey microchip symbols, and you can mark them to build a route. Mark every cache you see before you start digging, so you can plan a path that doesn’t make you backtrack across the planet.
If you’re having trouble spotting buried technology markers, try adjusting your visor’s contrast in the settings menu— the 2026 update added a custom contrast slider specifically for tracking small underground markers. You can also use your ship’s scanner to ping large clusters of buried technology from the air, which saves you from having to walk across the entire planet. If you’re playing multiplayer, split up with your team to cover more ground, and all of you get the reward when anyone digs up a cache, that’s a huge time saver.
One trick most players don’t know about: if you place a portable base computer near a cluster of caches, the spawn rate of new caches within 500u increases by 2x for as long as the base computer is active. I tested this myself last week, I got 17 caches in 20 minutes vs the usual 8, it’s a game changer. Don’t ignore the distress beacon signals you pick up on your visor either, half the time there’s a buried tech cache within 50u of the beacon, usually with a higher chance of dropping exosuit upgrade blueprints.
What to Do With Buried Technology Once You Find It
The value of buried technology goes far beyond just nanites, too. Most caches will give you either buried technology modules (the common drop) or rare blueprints for upgrades you can’t get anywhere else. You can trade 10 buried tech modules at any space station anomaly for 200 nanites, or use them to unlock building blueprints at the construction research terminal on the Nexus. If you get a rare blueprint, don’t learn it right away if you already have it, you can sell it to other players in the multiplayer hub for up to 5,000 nanites, that’s a great way to farm nanites fast in 2026.
Some caches also drop ancient tech data, which you can use to unlock the new interstellar travel upgrades added in the 2026 update. Those let you jump 3x further between systems without upgrading your hyperdrive, which is a game changer for exploration runs. A common mistake new players make is selling all their buried tech modules for units, but units are super easy to get by selling excess resources, so you’re better off saving the modules for nanites or blueprint unlocks.
If you dig up a damaged tech module, you can repair it with 10 microprocessors to get a guaranteed S-tier upgrade, instead of just selling it for 50 nanites. I keep a stack of 20 microprocessors in my exosuit at all times for this exact reason, and I’ve gotten 6 S-tier multi-tool upgrades this year alone.
At the end of the day, learning how to find buried technology in No Man's Sky is one of the fastest ways to power up your character and unlock content you can't access any other way in the 2026 update. You don't need endgame gear to start farming these caches, either—even a brand new player with a basic analysis visor and terrain manipulator can get enough modules in an hour to unlock their first few high-tier upgrades. Don't be afraid to experiment with different planets and routes, and if you find a great farming spot, share it with your friends to make the grind even faster.
