If you’ve logged any hours in No Man’s Sky’s 2026 Q1 Frontiers Expanded update, you’ve already run into carbon nanotubes as a required material for everything from exosuit jetpack upgrades to freighter hyperdrive repairs and the new interstellar comms devices added this year. Too many new players get stuck scouring old, pre-2026 guides that reference outdated recipes or blueprint requirements that no longer apply. If you’re one of those players wondering how to make carbon nanotubes no man's sky, this guide breaks down every step you need, plus hacks I’ve picked up over 120 hours of playtime this year to cut your farming time in half. I’ve tested every method here across 7 different galaxies, so you don’t have to waste time testing tricks that don’t work with the latest game patch.
What You Need to Craft Carbon Nanotubes in 2026’s No Man’s Sky
The 2026 update simplified the carbon nanotube recipe significantly, so you don’t have to hunt for a hidden blueprint or use rare secondary materials anymore. The recipe unlocks automatically for all players as soon as you complete the first exosuit repair tutorial at the start of the game, so you won’t have to waste nanites on unlocking it from the anomaly shop. That’s a huge change from pre-2024 versions of the game, where you had to find the blueprint in random crashed ship caches.
To craft a single carbon nanotube, you only need two things: 50 units of regular carbon or 25 units of condensed carbon, plus access to a portable refiner or base refiner of any tier. You don’t need a high-tier industrial refiner for this recipe, even the basic portable refiner you get at the start of the game works perfectly. Condensed carbon works as a substitute if you have extra lying around, but I almost always recommend using regular carbon for this craft, since condensed carbon is more useful for high-tier recipes like warp cells and stardust. You can also use activated carbon for this recipe, but that’s a huge waste of a rare resource, so I’ll cover that more in the common mistakes section later.
Step-by-Step Process to Make Carbon Nanotubes in No Man’s Sky
Now that you have your materials gathered, the actual crafting process is straightforward, even if you’re out exploring a remote planet with no base access. The 2026 update also added a quick-access refiner feature, so you don’t even have to place your portable refiner on the ground anymore to use it, which saves a ton of time when you’re in a hurry to repair your ship mid-exploration. Follow these steps to craft your nanotubes in under a minute:
One small tip I picked up last month when playing with friends: if you forgot to bring your portable refiner with you, you can use a teammate’s placed refiner in multiplayer without any permissions required, as long as they’re in the same system as you. That saved me once when I crashed on a frozen planet with no refiner and only enough carbon to make the nanotubes I needed to repair my launch thrusters. You can stack up to 99 batches of nanotubes in the refiner at once, so if you need 30 nanotubes for a freighter upgrade, you can add all the required carbon at once and walk away while it processes, instead of restarting the process every 10 seconds.
Fastest Farming Methods for Carbon to Make Carbon Nanotubes in 2026
Since carbon is the only material you need to make this craft, the fastest way to get all the nanotubes you need is to farm carbon efficiently, instead of buying nanotubes from space station traders for inflated prices. I’ve tested all of these methods, and even the slowest one will get you enough carbon for 20 nanotubes in 10 minutes or less.
The first and easiest method is to farm on a lush, green planet. Lush planets have tons of tall, leafy trees and large organic plants that drop 15-25 carbon per hit, so you can fill your inventory with 500 carbon in 5 minutes flat if you use a terrain manipulator with the resource yield boost mod installed. I have a permanent base on a lush planet in the Euclid galaxy, and I stop by for 2 minutes every time I need more nanotubes to restock. If you’re stuck on a dead, frozen, or toxic planet with no large plants, look for small glowing organic pods scattered across the surface, they drop 5-10 carbon each, so you can still get enough to make the nanotubes you need to leave.
If you don’t want to farm manually, you can set up carbon extractors on a planet with high carbon density. The 2026 update increased the output of resource extractors by 40%, so three small extractors connected to a power grid will generate 2000 carbon every 2 hours, even when you’re off exploring other galaxies. I have three extractors on my home base, and I never run out of carbon for nanotubes, fuel, or base building. If you have extra units to spare, you can also buy condensed carbon from most space station general traders for 10 units each, so 25 condensed carbon only costs 250 units, which is way cheaper than buying pre-made carbon nanotubes for 1500 units each.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Crafting Carbon Nanotubes
I made almost all of these mistakes when I first started playing the 2026 update, so I’m listing them here to save you the time and frustration of wasting rare resources or grinding for hours for no reason. Most of these mistakes come from relying on old, outdated guides from pre-2026 versions of the game, so make sure you’re following tips that reference the latest patch.
The most common mistake new players make is trying to craft nanotubes directly from their inventory menu. You can’t craft carbon nanotubes directly from your inventory crafting menu, even if you have all the required materials, you have to use a refiner of any tier. I wasted 20 minutes clicking through my inventory menu the first time I needed nanotubes, so don’t make that same mistake. Another common mistake is using activated carbon for this recipe. Activated carbon is a rare resource found only on extreme weather planets, and it’s used for endgame upgrades like advanced warp cores and exosuit hazard protection mods, so wasting it on nanotubes that you can make with common regular carbon is a terrible use of resources.
Another mistake I see a lot is selling extra nanotubes for cheap at space stations. Even if you have 50 extra nanotubes right now, you’ll need hundreds of them for the new 2026 expedition missions and freighter upgrade trees, so you’re better off storing them in your base storage than selling them for 1000 units each. The last mistake to avoid is forgetting to connect your base refiner to a power grid if you’re running large batches of nanotubes. If your refiner runs out of fuel mid-process, it will stop, and you’ll come back to half-finished batches. Connecting it to solar panels and batteries means it will run 24/7 without any fuel required, so you can run 99 batches of nanotubes while you’re off exploring other systems.
Now that you know how to make carbon nanotubes no man's sky, you can stop wasting time hunting for rare resources or overpaying for them at space stations, and start crafting all the upgrades you need to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy. I used these methods last weekend to craft 50 nanotubes for my freighter’s new interstellar hyperdrive upgrade, and it only took me 15 minutes total, compared to the 2 hours it took me when I first started playing earlier this year. If you have any other 2026-specific tips for crafting or farming nanotubes that I missed, drop them in the comments below, I’m always looking for new ways to cut down on crafting grind time.
