Scrap is a very important resource to collect in Astroneer. It allows you to trade for other materials using the Trade Platform, which can be extremely helpful when you need resources that are difficult to find on your current planet. Instead of traveling across multiple planets searching for specific materials, you can simply trade Scrap for the resources you need. Because of this, having a reliable way to farm Scrap can make progression in Astroneer much faster and easier.
Many players collect random debris and wreckage around planets and salvage those items to create Scrap. While this method works, it can be slow because you have to explore and search for scrapable objects. In this guide, I will show you a much faster and easier method that allows you to create a steady supply of Scrap using simple materials that are easy to gather.
Gather Soil
The first step in this process is gathering soil. Soil is one of the easiest resources to collect in Astroneer because it can be found almost everywhere. Using your Terrain Tool, start digging into the ground around your base to collect soil.
Before you begin collecting large amounts of soil, you should craft two canisters and attach them to your backpack. Canisters allow you to store soil that you collect with the Terrain Tool. Once you start digging, the soil will automatically fill the canisters on your backpack.
Continue collecting soil until both canisters are completely full. Having multiple full canisters will allow you to run the next part of the process several times without needing to constantly gather more soil.
Soil Centrifuge
Once your canisters are full, the next step is to use the Soil Centrifuge. The Soil Centrifuge is a very useful machine in Astroneer that allows you to convert soil into basic resources.
Place your soil canisters into the Soil Centrifuge and activate it. From the available options, choose to create resin. When the process completes, the centrifuge will produce eight pieces of resin from the soil you provided.
Resin is normally used for crafting base modules and other equipment, but in this method we will use it to create items that can be salvaged for Scrap.
Create Canisters
After producing resin from the Soil Centrifuge, you will want to use that resin to craft small canisters. Each resin can be used to create a canister, and since the centrifuge produces eight resin at a time, you can quickly create several canisters in just a few minutes.
Continue crafting canisters using all of the resin you produce. This step is important because these canisters will be the items you salvage in order to generate Scrap.
Since resin is very easy to produce using soil, you can keep repeating the centrifuge process and craft large numbers of canisters very quickly.
Salvage the Canisters
The final step is to salvage the canisters using a Salvager. Place the canisters onto the Salvager platform and activate it. The Salvager will slowly break down the items and convert them into Scrap.
On average, you will receive about one Scrap for every three to four canisters that are salvaged. While that may not seem like a lot at first, the process is extremely fast because soil is so easy to collect and resin can be produced quickly with the Soil Centrifuge.
The entire cycle of collecting soil, creating resin, crafting canisters, and salvaging them only takes a few minutes. If you repeat this process over and over, you can generate a steady and almost unlimited supply of Scrap.
Once you have built up a large amount of Scrap, you can send it through the Trade Platform to obtain valuable materials like iron, titanium, tungsten, and other resources that may be difficult to find on your current planet. This makes Scrap farming one of the most useful strategies for progressing quickly in Astroneer.
