If you’ve ever tried to upgrade your exosuit, build a large base, or repair a crashed freighter in No Man’s Sky, you’ve almost certainly hit the point where you need a stack of carbon nanotubes to progress. A lot of new players get stuck hunting for a hidden blueprint or farming the wrong resources for hours trying to get their hands on these versatile parts. If you’re one of those players, this guide breaks down exactly how to make carbon nanotubes in No Man's Sky, plus hacks to speed up the process so you can get back to exploring.
What You Need to Make Carbon Nanotubes in No Man's Sky
The good news is you don’t have to complete any long quest lines or hunt for rare blueprints to unlock the carbon nanotube recipe. It unlocks automatically early in the game, usually when you first repair your multi-tool’s terrain manipulator during the opening tutorial sequence. You don’t even need a crafting station to make them, either, they can be crafted directly in your personal inventory anywhere in the galaxy.
The only required material for a single carbon nanotube is 50 units of Condensed Carbon. If you’re new to the game, you might be tempted to use regular carbon, but that won’t work for this recipe. Condensed Carbon is a more concentrated form of the resource, and there are a few easy ways to get it fast, no matter what stage of the game you’re in:
- Burn regular carbon in a portable refiner: 2 regular carbon = 1 condensed carbon, this is the fastest method for new players who haven’t unlocked advanced farming setups
- Harvest it from crystalline carbon deposits found on frozen, barren, or radioactive planets, which drop 20-50 condensed carbon per node with an upgraded multi-tool
- Farm it from potted carbon plants in your base, which produce 10 condensed carbon every 15 minutes with no manual harvesting needed if you connect them to a supply depot
You don’t need a special blueprint to craft carbon nanotubes, that’s one of the most common myths new players spread online. As long as you have Condensed Carbon and the recipe unlocked from early game progression, you’re good to go. Avoid using regular carbon directly for anything other than refueling, it’s far less efficient for crafting advanced components like this.
Step-by-Step Crafting Process for Carbon Nanotubes
Once you have your Condensed Carbon stockpiled, crafting the nanotubes takes less than 10 seconds, no matter where you are in the galaxy. First, open your personal inventory by pressing the corresponding button on your controller or keyboard, then switch over to the crafting tab. The tab will show all available components you can make with the resources you’re carrying.
Scroll down until you find the “Advanced Crafting Components” section, and carbon nanotubes will be listed near the top. Select the component, and as long as you have 50 Condensed Carbon in your inventory, it will be crafted immediately and added to your free slots. If you’re making multiple carbon nanotubes for a freighter upgrade, you can queue up crafts in your inventory while you’re traveling between planets, no extra work required.
There are a few small things to keep in mind to make the process smoother. If you’re playing in Survival or Permadeath mode, you can’t craft new items if your inventory is completely full, so leave at least one empty slot before you start crafting. Stack your condensed carbon in groups of 50 if you plan to make multiple nanotubes, it will make it far easier to track how many you can make at once without counting individual units.
Fastest Ways to Get Carbon Nanotubes Without Crafting
Crafting is the most reliable way to get carbon nanotubes, but it’s not the only option. If you’re in a pinch and don’t have time to farm carbon and refine it, there are a few other methods to get your hands on these components fast, depending on what you have available.
The easiest option if you have extra units is to buy them from NPC vendors at space stations or planetary outposts. They usually cost around 2,000 units each, which is negligible if you’ve been selling rare resources or completed a few high-paying missions. Just make sure you check multiple vendors, as some will charge 10-15% more than others for the same component. Always check damaged tech nodes on crashed ships, they often drop 2-5 carbon nanotubes for free, no crafting required, and you’ll usually get a few extra rare components to sell at the same time.
You can also get carbon nanotubes as rewards for completing small delivery or scanning missions from NPCs at space stations. These missions usually only ask you to deliver common resources or scan a few local flora and fauna, and they often give you 3-10 nanotubes as a bonus reward on top of units. The only downside is that these rewards are random, so you can’t rely on them if you need a specific number of nanotubes for an urgent upgrade.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Making Carbon Nanotubes
Even though the crafting process is simple, a lot of players make small mistakes that waste time and resources when they’re trying to stock up on nanotubes. The most common mistake is wasting all your Condensed Carbon on other crafts before you make the nanotubes you need for critical upgrades. For example, if you need 10 nanotubes to fix your hyperdrive and leave a planet, don’t use all your Condensed Carbon to make multi-tool ammo first, or you’ll be stuck farming for another hour.
Another common mistake is thinking you need a base crafting station to make nanotubes. A lot of new players will travel all the way back to their base just to craft these parts, when they could have made them in their inventory while they were still on the resource planet. If you’re making carbon nanotubes for a terrain manipulator upgrade, make sure you have extra condensed carbon left over for ammo too, so you don’t have to stop mid-mining to craft more.
Never trade rare resources for carbon nanotubes at NPC exchange terminals, you’ll end up losing way more value than if you just craft them yourself. For example, some terminals will ask for a unit of Ferrite Dust or even Cobalt in exchange for a single nanotube, which is a terrible trade when you can make one for just 50 Condensed Carbon that takes 2 minutes to farm.
At the end of the day, carbon nanotubes are one of the most versatile components in No Man's Sky, and you’ll need hundreds of them if you plan to build large bases, upgrade all your tech, or expand your freighter fleet. Once you get the hang of how to make carbon nanotubes in No Man's Sky, you’ll never get stuck waiting for materials mid-project again. I used to waste hours running around planets looking for vendors selling them when I first started playing, but now I have a small carbon farm at my main base that gives me all the nanotubes I need in 10 minutes of work a week. Experiment with the methods above to find what works best for your playstyle, and don’t be afraid to tweak your setup as you unlock better gear.
