If you’ve ever stood halfway through building your first base, staring at a crafting menu that won’t let you make wiring or power units because you’re fresh out of copper, you know how frustrating resource gaps can be in No Man’s Sky. I’ve been there too: I once spent three hours wandering a frozen planet looking for copper deposits before I realized I was using my scanner wrong the entire time. This guide breaks down exactly how to find copper in No Man’s Sky, with tricks I’ve picked up across 200+ hours of play that work for both new players just starting their first save and veterans grinding for large construction projects. You won’t have to waste time flying from planet to planet guessing which one has the resources you need, either.
How to Find Copper in No Man’s Sky: First, Pick the Right Planet
Before you even land on a new planet, you can check if it has copper in seconds using your starship scanner. When you hover over a planet in your system map, the right-hand info panel will list all available resources on its surface. Copper will show up as a brownish copper-colored icon, so you don’t have to guess if a planet has it before you burn fuel landing. I once made this mistake on my first permadeath save, landing on a frozen moon and wandering for two hours before I pulled up the map and realized it had zero copper. I burned through half my oxygen supply and almost lost my save over it, so I never skip checking the planet resource list first now.
What planet types are most likely to have copper? From my experience, rocky, temperate, and arid planets almost always have copper deposits, while dead, frozen, or exotic planets rarely carry it. You can also prioritize planets marked as having abundant metallic resources in their description, as those will have far larger copper veins than average. One common mistake new players make is landing on the first planet they see and searching for hours, not realizing the planet doesn’t have any copper at all. That’s why checking the system map first is the single biggest time saver for copper farming.
Use Your Scanner and Analysis Visor to Locate Deposits Fast
Once you’re on a planet that you know has copper, pull out your Analysis Visor by holding the appropriate input on your controller or keyboard. The visor will highlight all nearby resources, including copper deposits, which will show up as bright orange markers with the copper icon next to them. If you don’t see any copper markers immediately, don’t panic. You can walk a few hundred meters in any direction and rescan, or climb a high hill to get a better view of the surrounding terrain. If you’re having trouble seeing the markers, try adjusting your visor’s brightness in the settings menu, or move away from any large rock formations that might be blocking the scanner’s line of sight.
Copper deposits are almost always found above ground, so you won’t have to dig deep into caves to find them unlike some rarer metals like indium or activated cadmium. If you’re playing on a save with base building already unlocked, you can also build a Signal Booster to pinpoint large copper veins in your immediate area. Just place the booster, interact with it, and select the “locate resource” option, then pick copper from the list. It will mark the closest large deposit for you, so you don’t have to wander aimlessly. For players who want even faster results, upgrading your Analysis Visor’s scanning range at the Space Anomaly will let you pick up copper deposits from twice as far away, cutting down your search time even more.
Efficient Copper Farming Methods for Large Stockpiles
If you need hundreds or thousands of copper for big projects like building a freighter base or crafting large batches of advanced components, random small deposits won’t cut it. I’ve tested dozens of farming methods over the years, and these are the only ones I use now when I need to stock up fast:
I prefer the extractor method for long-term copper needs, because I can set it up once and come back to 1000+ units of copper every few hours without doing any extra work. The only downside is that you’ll need to have access to the mineral extractor blueprint first, which you unlock by progressing through the base building quest line. If you’re a new player who hasn’t unlocked that yet, focusing on large outcrops with an upgraded mining laser is the fastest way to get the copper you need. Just make sure you bring enough fuel for your mining tool, so you don’t get stuck halfway through mining a large deposit.
Common Copper Farming Mistakes to Avoid
Even if you follow all the tips above, there are a few common pitfalls that can waste your time or leave you with less copper than you expected. The first mistake I see all the time is players wasting time mining copper from small floating rocks in space. Those rocks only give tiny amounts of copper, and you’ll burn far more starship fuel shooting them down than the copper is worth. You’re always better off landing on a planet and mining surface deposits than wasting time shooting space rocks for copper.
Another mistake is forgetting to check for sentinel activity before you start mining a large deposit. If you land on a planet with aggressive sentinels, they’ll attack you as soon as you start mining, which can interrupt your farming run and force you to either fight or run. You can check sentinel activity level on the planet info panel before you land, so prioritize planets with low or passive sentinel activity for farming runs. If you do end up on a planet with aggressive sentinels, you can still mine copper, but you’ll have to keep an eye on your alert level and hide if it gets too high.
Finally, don’t forget to use your inventory stack upgrades for resources. If you don’t have extra inventory space for copper, you’ll have to make multiple trips back to your base or starship to unload, which adds unnecessary time to your farming run. I always keep at least 10 empty inventory slots reserved for resources when I go out farming, so I don’t have to cut runs short. Stack upgrades for common resources like copper are cheap to buy from space stations, so they’re one of the best early game investments you can make for easier farming.
Copper is one of the most versatile and frequently used resources in No Man’s Sky, so learning to find it quickly will save you hours of frustration across every playthrough. The tips we’ve covered work for every game mode, from standard survival to permadeath, and they’re easy to implement even if you’re only a few hours into your first save. Once you get the hang of how to find copper in No Man’s Sky, you’ll never find yourself stuck mid-build waiting for the resources you need again. If you have a favorite copper farming trick we didn’t mention, feel free to share it in the comments below!
