Crystalline Shards Farm Guide

Crystalline Shard fields are surface biological sites that grow clusters of crystals you harvest from the SRV. Each cluster tip drops ~3 units of one Grade-4 raw material — the rarest tier of raw mats (raw materials only go G1–G4; there is no G5 raw).

The magic is the math: there are exactly 7 raw-material categories, each topped by one G4. The shard circuit below hits all seven. Cap the seven G4 bins, fly home, and trade down at a Raw Material Trader to backfill every G3 and G2 in every category. One run = the whole raw grid filled. It also conveniently progresses your Professor Palin unlock if that's still open.

Any exploration-capable ship works (unengineered is fine); an Asp Explorer, for instance, already carries most of this:

The Detailed Surface Scanner (DSS) is the one non-negotiable: it's how you confirm a body actually has shards and map the dense patches before committing to a landing.

Locating the field is the same drill at every site — the harvesting itself is in Section 4:

1. Honk & check

   Discovery-scan the system, open the system map — a shard world lists Surface Signals, and crystal shards register under the Biological category (not Geological).

2. Enter orbital cruise

   Fly to the planet until you drop into the glide screen.

3. Deploy the DSS

   Switch to Analysis mode, deploy the scanner — the view changes to the probe-aiming overlay.

4. Map it

   Fire probes (they arc around the horizon, so no full line-of-sight needed) until you hit "Mapped" — aim for 90%+.

5. Filter to Biological

   Cycle the heat-map filter to Biological signals. Darker / more intense colour = denser concentration. (There's no "Crystal Shards" label — they live under Biological.)

6. Drop on the densest patch — or just use the coordinates in Section 5

   On the Live engine there's no selectable shard waypoint in the left panel, so you fly to the lat/long manually (your HUD shows current lat/long in orbital cruise).

7. Land & deploy the SRV

   Set down beside a dense patch and drop the buggy — then work the field as in Section 4.

Both site types are worked from the SRV, and the loop is the same: drive up, shoot the part that holds the material, then scoop the fragments. The only differences are what you aim at and how much each hit gives.

Crystalline shards

1. Target a needle

   Drive up to a cluster and aim at the thin crystal needles jutting out of the mound — ideally the point where a needle joins the body. The fat base mound itself drops nothing; reposition the SRV if the body blocks your line.

2. Shoot it off

   Snap the needle with the SRV's plasma repeaters (your turreted weapons) — a couple of shots breaks it and scatters raw-material fragments on the ground. You can also dismount and knock several needles down on foot with your sidearm, then remount to collect the pile in one pass.

3. Scoop the fragments

   Deploy the SRV cargo scoop and drive over the dropped fragments — they vacuum straight into your weightless raw materials inventory (never the cargo hold). A needle gives about 3 units of that body's raw.

4. Strip the patch, then move up

   A dense field holds dozens of clusters — far more than you need. When the patch beside you is bare, just drive to the next cluster.

Brain trees

1. Find a fruiting tree

   Only about 1 tree in 7 carries a harvestable pod at a time — scan the branches for the bright, knobbly seed pods (gold/yellow "popcorn" clumps).

2. Shoot the pod & scoop

   Blast the pod with the SRV repeaters and scoop the fragments exactly as with shards. A pod gives roughly 1 unit (unconfirmed) — less per hit than a shard needle, so the forest's density is what carries it.

3. Spread out

   Fruiting trees are scattered across the whole forest; once you've picked the ones near you, drive on to fresh ground.

Tap any coordinate to copy it. Four categories at HIP 36601 (~1,600 Ly out), two at the neighbouring Outotz LS-K D8-3 (~1,715 Ly), and Selenium at HR 3230 — the near-bubble outlier at only ~425 Ly. Distances are straight-line from Sol. See Section 7 for the run order.

The chase is the only fiddly part. Done right it's a minute per planet; done wrong (from the SRV) it's an hour-long slog. Three rules:

1. Do it from orbital cruise, not the SRV

   The higher you are, the faster the numbers move. Line the coordinates up while still up high, then drop almost straight down.

2. Lock one axis at a time

   Fix latitude first by flying only heading 0° or 180°; once within a few degrees, turn to 90°/270° for longitude. (For site 1: head south to ≈ -57.5 lat, then east toward +126.95 long.)

3. Refine, then drop

   Hold the first axis ±1–2° while dialing the second to within ±0.5°, then go visual — your SRV wave scanner and your eyes handle the last stretch. You can't fully steer the descent, so spend the final few km low and slow.

The play: fly out, top off all seven G4 bins, fly home, then visit a Raw Material Trader (find your nearest on Inara) and trade each G4 down its category to fill the G3 and G2 rows. The G1 commons you never collect deliberately — they accumulate everywhere you fly.

The optimal loop — bubble out and back

Two of the three systems are a tight pair deep in the Sanguineous Rim (HIP 36601 and Outotz LS-K D8-3, only ~406 Ly apart); HR 3230 sits near the bubble. The single long leg between them dominates the trip, so clip HR 3230 on as you leave and run the deep pair as one stop:

1. Bubble → HR 3230 · ~425 Ly

   First stop on the way out. Harvest Selenium at 3 A A (the brain-tree forest, Section 4).

2. HR 3230 → HIP 36601 · ~1,415 Ly

   The long haul into the Rim. Work all four bodies here — Polonium, Ruthenium, Tellurium, Technetium (C 1 A / C 1 D / C 3 B / C 5 A).

3. HIP 36601 → Outotz LS-K D8-3 · ~406 Ly

   A quick hop next door for Yttrium and Antimony (B 5 A / B 5 C).

4. Outotz → Bubble · ~1,715 Ly

   Fly home with all seven G4 bins topped, then trade down at a Raw Material Trader.

Seven G4 tops → all seven categories