If you’ve ever stood at a crafting terminal stuck trying to make thermic layer plating, coolant, or even basic refiner fuels, you know how frustrating it is to run out of common low-tier resources right when you need them. I’ve been there mid-survival run, 10 minutes away from a deadly storm, with no way to craft heat resistance because I skipped picking up a resource I thought was useless. Learning how to get salt in No Man’s Sky doesn’t just fix that specific problem – it opens up dozens of crafting recipes, trade opportunities, and even base building upgrades you might not have access to otherwise. Salt is one of the most versatile early to mid-game resources, and once you know where to look, you’ll never run out again.
Where to Find Natural Salt Spawns While Exploring
Salt is a planetary resource, so you won’t find it floating in space or on dead airless rocks for the most part. It spawns almost exclusively on water-rich planets and frozen biomes, which are marked with blue or white icons on your galaxy map when you scan a star system. When you land on a valid planet, pull out your scanner and look for the white crystalline icon marked “salt” – it will pop up within 300 units of your position if any spawns are nearby.
You don’t need any advanced mining tools to harvest it, either; a basic mining laser will work just fine, though an upgraded laser with a resource boost module will cut your harvest time in half. For example, I once stumbled on a frozen planet with salt deposits stretching for miles right next to my spawn point, and I gathered 2,000 units of salt in less than 10 minutes without any special gear. If you’re specifically searching for how to get salt in No Man’s Sky without crafting, natural spawns are your best bet, though you don’t have to go out of your way to hunt for these planets if you’re still early in the game. There are far faster ways to get the small amounts of salt you need for early crafting recipes without jumping across three star systems.
How to Get Salt in No Man’s Sky With Minimal Grinding
If you don’t want to spend 20 minutes trekking across a frozen planet looking for salt deposits, there are three low-effort methods that will get you all the salt you need in a fraction of the time. I use these all the time when I’m in a pinch and don’t have time for a dedicated resource run:
- Refine sodium and di-hydrogen in a medium refiner: This is the easiest method for early players, since both sodium and di-hydrogen are some of the most common resources in the game. Just put 2 sodium and 1 di-hydrogen into a refiner, and you’ll get 1 salt out. No travel required, no scanning, just use the resources you already have in your inventory.
- Purchase salt from space station traders or planetary NPCs: Salt is an extremely cheap resource, usually selling for less than 20 units per piece. You can often buy stacks of 500 or more from random traders docking at space stations for pocket change, especially if you’re in a star system with water or frozen planets.
- Loot salt from abandoned buildings and reward crates: Almost every abandoned building, damaged cargo pod, and planetary reward crate has a small chance to drop salt stacks. If you’re already exploring for other resources or story missions, you’ll likely pick up a few hundred units of salt without even trying just by looting every container you pass.
I prefer the refiner method most of the time, since I always have thousands of extra sodium sitting in my storage from repairing my hazard protection. The only downside of the refiner method is that it can be slow if you need thousands of units of salt for a big crafting project. In that case, you’re better off setting up a passive farm so you don’t have to spend time babysitting a refiner.
Best Passive Salt Farming Methods for Endgame Players
Once you’ve progressed to the point where you’re building large bases or crafting high-end trade goods, you’ll need far more salt than you can get from refining or looting. Passive farming lets you generate hundreds of thousands of units of salt while you’re off doing other missions, exploring, or even logged out of the game. The first step to setting up a salt farm is to find a water planet with a high salt concentration rating – you can see this rating when you scan the planet from your ship, right below the biome description. Look for a rating of “high” or “very high” to get the maximum yield from your extractors.
Once you find a good spot, place down 3-4 mineral extractors directly on top of a large salt deposit, connect them to a bank of supply depots, and power the whole setup with solar panels and batteries. A single well-placed extractor on a high-concentration planet can generate 200+ units of salt per hour, so a small farm of 4 extractors will give you nearly 2,000 units of salt every time you log back in after a few hours. This is the most hands-off way to handle how to get salt in No Man’s Sky for large scale use. If you don’t want to bother with finding a salt deposit, you can also set up a bank of 10+ medium refiners connected to supply depots full of sodium and di-hydrogen. This setup will auto-refine salt 24/7 as long as you keep the input depots stocked, and it’s a great option if you already have a large sodium farm running on your base. I’ve had both setups running on my main base for months, and I now have over 100,000 units of salt stored that I use for crafting coolant to sell to traders for millions of units a week. It’s a tiny investment for a huge long-term payoff, especially if you like to focus on trade and base building over exploration.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Gathering Salt
Even though salt is a relatively easy resource to get, there are a few common mistakes that new players make that waste time or leave them without enough salt when they need it most. First, don’t make the mistake of ignoring small salt deposits when you’re exploring early in the game. Even picking up 50 or 100 units of salt whenever you see it will save you from having to stop what you’re doing later to grind for it when you need to craft a new upgrade. I made this mistake when I first started playing, and I ended up having to abandon a story mission halfway through because I didn’t have enough salt to make the coolant I needed for my ship’s hyperdrive.
Second, don’t waste space in your personal inventory carrying more than 500 units of salt unless you’re specifically taking it to a crafting station. Salt is cheap and easy to get, so you’re better off storing extra in your base or ship storage so you have room for rarer, more valuable resources like activated indium or storm crystals. Third, don’t forget that salt can be refined further into chlorine, which is used in even more high-end crafting recipes. If you have extra salt sitting around, don’t sell it all off – refine a portion of it into chlorine to keep on hand for upgrades. That small extra step will save you a ton of time later when you need chlorine for advanced hazard protection or base power systems.
At the end of the day, salt is one of those underrated resources that doesn’t seem important until you suddenly don’t have any. Whether you’re a new player just figuring out how to get salt in No Man’s Sky or a veteran looking to set up a passive farm for bulk crafting, the methods we covered here will help you keep your storage fully stocked with zero unnecessary grinding. The next time you’re scanning a new star system, keep an eye out for those water and frozen planets – a quick 10 minute salt run could save you from a lot of frustration later on. And if you’re really in a pinch? Just pop over to the nearest space station and buy a stack for a few hundred units. It’s never been easier to make sure you never run out of this essential crafting resource again.
