If you’ve spent even a few hours roaming No Man’s Sky’s endless procedurally generated planets, you’ve probably run into piles of raw resources you don’t know what to do with, or rare crafting recipes that require materials you can’t find anywhere on your current world. That’s where the refiner comes in: this multi-tiered tool turns common raw materials into high-value, hard-to-find resources in just a few clicks, and it’s one of the first items every new player should prioritize unlocking. We’ve put together this full breakdown of how to get a refiner in No Man’s Sky, plus pro tips for getting the most out of it once you have it set up.
How to Unlock Your First Portable Refiner in No Man’s Sky
The first refiner you’ll get access to is the portable refiner, and you won’t have to grind for hours or hunt down rare NPCs to get its blueprint. It’s automatically awarded as part of the early Awakenings quest line, the main story path that triggers as soon as you fix your initial crashed ship and start exploring your first planet. You don’t need to purchase the portable refiner blueprint from a space station or NPC, because it’s added to your construction menu as soon as you collect your first 50 pieces of Ferrite Dust and interact with your first base computer prompt.
Once you have the blueprint, building the portable refiner only requires three easy-to-find materials: 30 Oxygen, 50 Ferrite Dust, and 1 Metal Plating. You can collect all of these in under 10 minutes on any starting planet, by scanning for local flora for Oxygen and rock deposits for Ferrite Dust. The Metal Plating can be crafted directly from Ferrite Dust in your exosuit inventory, no extra tools required. I always keep one portable refiner in my exosuit inventory even after I unlock larger fixed refiners, because it’s saved me dozens of trips back to my base when I’m mining for rare resources 1000 units away from my nearest teleporter.
What You Need to Build Higher-Tier Refiners
The portable refiner works great for early game field processing, but once you start building a permanent base and working on advanced crafting recipes, you’ll want to upgrade to larger, higher-capacity refiners. These fixed refiners have more input slots, faster processing speeds, and access to exclusive multi-material recipes that the portable refiner can’t run. You can purchase their blueprints from the Construction Research Unit terminal at any space station, using Salvaged Data you collect from Buried Technology modules on planets.
The exact materials and costs for each refiner tier are:
- Portable Refiner: 30 Oxygen, 50 Ferrite Dust, 1 Metal Plating (no base required, can be placed anywhere, 1 input slot)
- Medium Refiner: 200 Ferrite Dust, 5 Sodium Nitrate, 1 Microprocessor (must be placed on a base floor or wall, 2 input slots for combined recipes)
- Large Refiner: 300 Ferrite Dust, 100 Sodium Nitrate, 2 Microprocessors, 1 Hermetic Seal (must be placed on a base, 3 input slots, fastest processing speed of all refiner tiers)
Salvaged Data is easy to farm even for new players. Just pull out your analysis visor on any planet, and scan for small Buried Technology markers. Each module you dig up gives 1 to 4 pieces of Salvaged Data, so you can collect enough for both the medium and large refiner blueprints in 15 to 20 minutes of casual exploration. Higher-tier refiners can run all the same recipes as lower tiers, so you don’t have to keep your portable refiner around if you don’t want to, though I still recommend it for field trips.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Your Refiner
Even if you know how to get a refiner in No Man’s Sky, it’s easy to make small mistakes that waste resources or leave you without access to the tool when you need it most. The first mistake I see new players make all the time is leaving their portable refiner unattended for too long on uncharted planets. Loose placed items like portable refiners, portable save points, and deployable scanners can despawn if you leave the star system or log off for more than 24 in-game hours. Never leave rare resources processing in a portable refiner if you’re planning to warp to another system, because you will lose both the resources and the refiner if it despawns while you’re gone.
Another common mistake is using the wrong fuel source for long processing runs. All refiners run on either Carbon or Condensed Carbon, but Condensed Carbon lasts 4 times longer than regular Carbon. I used to waste stacks of regular Carbon on 30-minute refining jobs when I first started, and I had to run out to mine more halfway through so my job wouldn’t stop. It’s always worth refining a stack of regular Carbon into Condensed Carbon first before you start a big processing batch, to save yourself the hassle of mid-job resource runs.
You also want to double-check recipe previews before you hit start for multi-material jobs. For most recipes, the order of materials you put in doesn’t matter, but for a few rare ones, putting the wrong ratio first can give you a different output than you expected. For example, putting 2 Oxygen and 1 Carbon in a medium refiner will give you Condensed Carbon, but putting 1 Oxygen and 2 Carbon will give you Unstable Gel, which is a totally different item with very few uses.
Pro Ways to Use Your Refiner to Speed Up Exploration
Most new players only use their refiner to turn raw materials into building supplies, but it’s one of the most powerful exploration tools in your inventory if you know how to use it right. You can turn excess Ferrite Dust into Pure Ferrite, then into Magnetised Ferrite, right in the field if you run out of building materials for base expansions or exosuit upgrades. I’ve used this trick dozens of times when I’m far from my base and find an exosuit upgrade drop that requires Magnetised Ferrite to unlock, and it’s saved me hours of backtracking.
You can also use your refiner to turn common, low-value resources into high-value trade goods to earn units fast. For example, if you’re exploring a frozen planet with lots of Cobalt deposits, you can refine Cobalt into Ionized Cobalt, which sells for 3 times the price of raw Cobalt at any space station or trade terminal. For even bigger profits, you can combine refined resources like Tritium and Silver to make Fusion Igniters, which sell for millions of units each if you have the recipe unlocked.
If you’re stuck on a harsh toxic or frozen planet with low life support, your refiner can also keep you alive. You can refine any extra Carbon and local flora into nutrient paste, which will recharge your life support and hazard protection far longer than raw resources. I’ve used this trick to stay on stormy planets for hours longer than I would have been able to otherwise, to farm rare storm crystals for high-tier upgrades.
Whether you’re a brand new player still fixing your first crashed ship, or a veteran explorer running across 10 different star systems, knowing how to get a refiner in No Man’s Sky is one of the core skills that will make every part of the game easier, faster, and more fun. You don’t have to grind for hours to unlock all the tiers, and even the basic portable refiner will give you a huge leg up when it comes to collecting resources, earning units, and building the base of your dreams. Next time you land on a new planet, pull out your refiner and experiment with different material combinations—you might be surprised at what rare items you can make with the resources you already have in your inventory.
