You’re mid-way through building your dream automated base, just about to hook up a bank of activated indium extractors, when the game throws you a curveball: you need a wiring loom to connect the power grid, and you don’t have a single one in your inventory. I’ve been there too, staring at a stack of ferrite dust and copper wondering what I missed, before I figured out how simple the process actually is. If you’re in the same spot, this breakdown of how to make wiring loom in No Man's Sky will get you back to building in minutes, no complicated workarounds required.
What You Need to Make a Wiring Loom in No Man’s Sky
Before you can craft a wiring loom, you’ll need two core materials and the unlocked blueprint, both of which are far easier to get than most new players expect. You don’t need a special crafting station to make a wiring loom – you can craft it directly from your inventory crafting menu once you have all required items, so you don’t even have to be at your base to put one together. Salvaged Data is super easy to farm on any lush planet with low sentinel activity – just use your analysis visor to find buried technology modules, dig them up, and you’ll get 1-2 per module in 90% of cases.
- 100 Chromatic Metal: Refined from any activated stellar metal, or copper, cadmium, emeril, indium paired with equal parts ferrite dust in a medium or large refiner. Copper works perfectly for this and is available in every starter star system, so you don’t need to hunt for rare metals.
- 50 Poly Fibre: Crafted from 60 Carbon and 40 Oxygen directly in your inventory, or purchased from trade terminals in wealthy Gek star systems for around 12,000 units per stack of 25.
- 1 Wiring Loom blueprint: Unlocked automatically when you progress to the powered base section of the main base building quest line, or bought for 3 Salvaged Data at the Space Anomaly construction research terminal if you want to skip ahead.
If you don’t see the wiring loom in your crafting menu even after you think you unlocked the blueprint, double check your construction research tree on the Anomaly. It’s easy to accidentally skip over it when you’re buying blueprints for fancy base decor first.
Step-by-Step Process to Craft Your Wiring Loom
Once you have all your materials and the blueprint, the actual crafting process takes less than a minute, even if you’re playing on survival mode with limited inventory space. First, if you haven’t unlocked the blueprint yet, teleport to the Space Anomaly and head to the back left corner where the construction research vendor is stationed. Spend 3 Salvaged Data on the wiring loom blueprint, and it will automatically be added to your crafting menu.
Next, gather your materials. If you’re short on chromatic metal, pull out your analysis visor to find a copper deposit on the nearest planet, mine 200 copper and 200 ferrite dust, then run both through a refiner to get 100 chromatic metal in about two minutes. For poly fibre, run through a forested area shooting plants with your multi-tool to collect carbon, and pick up glowing oxygen flora along the way – you’ll have enough to craft 2 full stacks of poly fibre in five minutes tops.
Open your inventory, navigate to the crafting tab, and scroll down to the “Technology Components” section. Select the wiring loom, hit craft, and it will be added to your inventory immediately. If the option doesn’t show up, double check you’ve unlocked the blueprint first – that’s the most common issue new players run into, and it’s an easy fix. I usually keep 3-4 pre-crafted wiring looms in my exosuit inventory at all times, so I don’t have to stop mid-build to farm materials when I’m setting up a new outpost on a distant planet.
Best Uses for Wiring Looms in Your No Man’s Sky Playthrough
Wiring looms are one of the most versatile mid-game crafting components, and you’ll find yourself needing them for far more than just base power grids once you start exploring more advanced content. The first and most common use is base automation: you need wiring looms to connect power sources like solar panels and biofuel reactors to extractors, supply depots, hydroponic farms, and automated defense turrets. If you’re building a passive activated indium farm to make millions of units, you’ll need at least 2-3 wiring looms per extractor setup to connect everything to your power grid and shared storage system.
They’re also a core component for most high-tier exosuit, multi-tool, and starship upgrades. Most S-tier upgrades you buy from pirate stations or earn from community missions require at least one wiring loom to craft, so having a few on hand lets you install upgrades immediately instead of waiting to farm materials later. Wiring looms are also required to repair most crashed freighters and starships you find on planet surfaces, so keeping a couple in your inventory when you’re exploring abandoned planets can save you from having to abandon a perfect S-class ship find because you don’t have the parts to fix its critical systems.
If you’re looking for a fast way to earn extra units, you can also use wiring looms to craft advanced tech components like quantum processors, which sell for 120,000+ units each at trade terminals in Vy’keen systems. The materials to make one quantum processor cost less than 15,000 units total, so it’s a great low-effort way to make money if you have extra wiring looms lying around. Just note that you can’t trade wiring looms directly with other players in multiplayer, but you can trade the raw materials needed to make them if a friend is stuck mid-build.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Making Wiring Looms
Even though the process is simple, there are a few common mistakes that cost new players hours of wasted time, and I’ve made all of them myself at one point or another. The first mistake is wasting all your Salvaged Data on fancy base decor blueprints before you unlock the wiring loom. I did this on my first playthrough, spent 20 Salvaged Data on neon signs and planters, then got stuck when I tried to build my first extractor and had to spend an hour digging up buried technology modules to get the 3 data I needed for the loom blueprint.
Another common mistake is trying to refine wiring looms in a refiner. A lot of new players assume all advanced components are refined, but wiring looms are only craftable directly in your inventory, so don’t waste time throwing chromatic metal and poly fibre into a refiner hoping it will pop out. You’ll just end up with a mess of unused materials and no loom to show for it.
Don’t buy wiring looms from trade terminals unless you’re in a huge rush – they sell for 50,000+ units each, which is 10x more expensive than crafting them yourself from cheap, easy to find materials. The only time I ever buy them is if I’m 30 seconds away from claiming a crashed S-class freighter and I’m one loom short of repairing its hyperdrive. If you’re playing in survival mode where resources are scarcer, set up a small chromatic metal refiner and carbon farm at your main base, so you can craft wiring looms whenever you need them without leaving your base.
At the end of the day, learning how to make wiring loom in No Man's Sky is one of those small, game-changing skills that makes every part of your playthrough smoother, from base building to exploration to earning extra units. Once you’ve got the blueprint unlocked and you know where to get the materials, you’ll never be stuck waiting for a wiring loom mid-project again. I still keep a stack of 10 in my freighter inventory 200 hours into my playthrough, and I can’t count how many times they’ve saved me from having to cut an exploration trip short to run back to base for materials. If you’ve got a go-to trick for farming wiring loom materials fast, drop it in the comments below to help out other players.
