I still remember the frustration of being stuck on my first No Man’s Sky starting planet for 45 minutes because I had no clue how to make hermetic seal No Man’s Sky required to fix my broken starship hull. All I had was a beat up multi-tool, a handful of ferrite dust, and zero idea where to find the rare resources the recipe called for. If you’re staring at the same red "missing component" warning on your ship repair screen, or you need extra seals for base airlocks and long-range exploration craft, this guide walks you through every step of the process, no guesswork required. We’ll cover resource locations, alternative crafting paths, and common mistakes that waste hours of your farming time so you can get back to exploring the galaxy faster.
Core Requirements to Make Hermetic Seal No Man’s Sky Successfully
Before you start farming resources, it’s important to confirm you meet the basic prerequisites to craft the seal. The good news is the recipe unlocks automatically the second you boot up a new save, so you don’t have to hunt for blueprints or complete side missions to access it. You can craft it anywhere, even in the middle of a storm on a radioactive planet, as long as you have the right materials in your inventory.
The base crafting recipe for a single hermetic seal is simple: 1 unit of Di-hydrogen Jelly and 30 units of Condensed Carbon. If you haven’t crafted Di-hydrogen Jelly before, that recipe is also pre-unlocked, and requires 40 units of raw Di-hydrogen to make one jelly. That means your total raw resource cost for one seal is 40 Di-hydrogen and 150 Carbon, since it takes 5 raw Carbon to make 1 Condensed Carbon.
You don’t need a base building terminal, portable refiner, or any other special equipment to put the seal together, though a refiner will speed up resource processing by a lot. The personal inventory crafting menu has all the options you need to turn raw resources into the finished seal in less than 10 seconds once you have all materials on hand.
Step-by-Step Hermetic Seal Crafting Process
Even if you’re brand new to NMS crafting systems, this process is straightforward once you have all your materials gathered. I recommend sorting your inventory first to avoid hunting for resources while you’re mid-craft, especially if you’re trying to make a seal during a storm where your hazard protection is draining fast. This process works every time, no matter what game mode you’re playing, so you never have to look up how to make hermetic seal No Man’s Sky requires again once you memorize the steps.
Follow these steps to make your seal without missteps:
- Open your personal inventory menu and navigate to the crafting tab, marked with a small hammer icon on the left side of the screen.
- First, craft 1 Di-hydrogen Jelly by selecting the jelly icon from the consumables section, and confirm you have 40 Di-hydrogen in your inventory to complete the craft.
- Return to the main crafting menu, scroll to the starship components section, select the hermetic seal icon, and confirm the craft to add the finished seal to your inventory.
That’s all there is to it. If you’re making the seal to repair your starting ship, you can immediately apply it directly from the crafting menu by selecting the "apply to repair" option that pops up after the craft finishes. If you’re making extra seals for later use, they’ll store in your general inventory until you need them for base airlocks, secondary ship repairs, or trade with NPCs.
One quick hack I use when I’m making multiple seals for a fleet of exploration ships is to bulk craft Di-hydrogen Jelly first before moving to the seal crafting step. This cuts down on menu navigation time by half, especially if you’re making 5 or 6 seals at once for a long expedition.
Fastest Ways to Farm Required Resources for Hermetic Seals
The biggest time sink for making hermetic seals is farming the raw resources, especially if you’re stuck on a barren starting planet with limited vegetation and sparse di-hydrogen spawns. I’ve tested dozens of farming methods across 7 different save files, and these are the fastest ways to gather what you need without wasting hours wandering. These farming methods cut the time it takes to gather everything you need to follow how to make hermetic seal No Man’s Sky guides by 70% compared to wandering aimlessly looking for resources.
For Di-hydrogen, the easiest place to find it is on the surface of almost any planet, marked by shiny blue di-hydrogen crystal clusters that pop up on your multi-tool scanner as small blue dots. If you’re on an icy or frozen planet, these clusters spawn in huge patches of 20 or more, so you can gather 40 units in less than a minute. If you can’t find any on the surface, check small cave systems, as di-hydrogen often spawns in large clumps just below the surface away from storm winds. You can also buy di-hydrogen jelly directly from most space station technology vendors for 5,000 units a pop, which is a great shortcut if you have extra units and no time to farm.
For Carbon, the fastest way to gather large amounts is to use your multi-tool to cut down tall leafy vegetation on any planet with a breathable atmosphere. One large tree can give you up to 50 units of raw carbon, so you can get the 150 units you need for one seal in less than 30 seconds. If you’re on a barren or dead planet with no vegetation, you can harvest carbon from red carbon-rich rock formations that spawn on almost every lifeless world. If you have a portable refiner, you can also turn excess oxygen and ferrite dust into condensed carbon directly, skipping the step of crafting condensed carbon from raw carbon in your inventory.
If you’re playing on a permadeath save and don’t want to risk getting caught in a storm while farming, you can also find both resources in cargo pods scattered around crashed ship sites and abandoned outposts. Most cargo pods have at least 20 units of di-hydrogen and 50 units of condensed carbon, so looting 2 or 3 pods will give you everything you need to make a seal without leaving the safety of a sheltered area.
Common Hermetic Seal Crafting Mistakes to Avoid
I’ve made every possible mistake when crafting hermetic seals over hundreds of hours of playtime, and most of them cost me at least 20 minutes of extra farming time when I was in a hurry to leave a dangerous planet. Avoid these missteps to save yourself frustration and wasted resources. If you’re playing with friends in multiplayer, you can also ask your squad to share extra resources if they have spares, so you can make the hermetic seal No Man’s Sky requires for your ship repair without leaving your shelter.
The most common mistake new players make is accidentally using all your condensed carbon to recharge hazard protection or multi-tool batteries before they craft the seal. Condensed carbon is a common recharge material for almost all your core equipment, so I recommend setting aside the 30 units you need for the seal in a separate inventory slot as soon as you farm it, so you don’t accidentally use it up mid-storm. You can also lock the resource stack in your inventory to prevent accidental use if you’re playing on PC or console with the latest update.
Another common mistake is wasting raw di-hydrogen on starship launch fuel when you need it to make Di-hydrogen Jelly. Launch fuel only requires 20 units of di-hydrogen per unit, so it’s easy to burn through 40 units making two loads of fuel before you realize you don’t have enough left for the jelly. If you’re making a seal to repair your starting ship, craft the jelly first before you make any extra launch fuel, so you don’t get stuck waiting for di-hydrogen to respawn.
Finally, don’t waste units buying hermetic seals directly from vendors unless you’re in a real emergency. Most vendors charge 12,000 units or more for a single seal, which is 3 times the cost of buying the pre-made Di-hydrogen Jelly and crafting the seal yourself. The only time it’s worth buying a pre-made seal is if you’re stuck on a dead planet with no di-hydrogen spawns and your hazard protection is seconds away from running out.
At the end of the day, learning how to make hermetic seal No Man’s Sky is one of the first core skills every new player needs to master to get the most out of the game. Once you memorize the recipe and the fastest resource farming spots, you’ll be able to make a seal in less than two minutes from the second you realize you need one, so you never get stuck stranded on a hostile planet again. Don’t be afraid to test out shortcuts like buying Di-hydrogen Jelly from space stations if you have extra units, or looting cargo pods to skip farming entirely when you’re in a hurry. The galaxy is huge, and you don’t want to waste time hunting for resources when you could be discovering new planets, alien species, and hidden secrets across the stars.
