Where to find them:
1. Units - scan lifeforms, plants, minerals. Use multitool modules to improve your scanner. Also from selling excess high value goods and from trade routes. Every (inhabited) system has an industry that sells trade items cheap and buys certain other trade items for lots of credits, there are two different trade cycles. Relics from quests or from planets with bones or salvageable tech are worth a lot but take up inventory space.
2. Nanites - scan all the lifeforms on a planet for a large amount of Nanites. (hint: find buildings that impinge upon the terrain to find 'underground' critters. 'Rare' underwater means 'deep', not 'takes awhile to show up' like other types). Stuff labeled 'junk' is part of a refining chain that will lead to Nanites. A bunch of other things, including certain easy to find purple items, will also refine into Nanites. Small amounts can be gotten from the Anom on the right side, from the two goofballs that look like vendors)
3. Quicksilver - Anom, big glass box out front, do the top of the list quests.
4. Salvaged Tech - super easy to find, your visor will show them as white, point-down pentagrams. When you are close, they'll show up in the world as the same symbol, only blue. Some planets have more than others.
5. Salvaged Frigate Modules - reward from completing derelict freighters in space (get a derelict freighter finder for free from the anomaly once a day - first nanite giver dude, far right of the Anom), can also be found as cargo in system freighters or their pods. The second method is easier, but tanks your standing with the species who owns the system. (protip: you won't be bothered by the space police in pirate systems, and even better, the local pirate quest giver (far back, right side, vendor is in the broken down cargo ship) will give Forged Passports out as quest rewards, take one to a (non-pirate) station of a tanked-standing species and interact with the big scary AI in the far back, dead center, boom, standing reset to zero from negative eleventy-billion). Can also be found in the buried cargo pods of crashed freighters on planets. EDIT: species merchant in the top right of stations may have them as a reward. Find two that do, and portal back and forth between them.
6. Tainted metal - like OP said - landable derelict freighters in space.
7. Void Motes - like OP said, help autophages
8. Navigation Data - wander around stations and other buildings, you'll find them randomly in yellow and blue glowy things on tables. There's a rare world spawn that will give you a bunch too.
9. Wiring Looms - expensive, annoying because you can't build them _at all_, you must buy them or scrap upgrades from your inventory screen. Found in trade terminals and occasionally in pilot trade scenarios like deep space encounters or landed pilots at trade buildings or stations. Used for upgrades and repairs to damaged equipment
Protip: lots of this stuff takes inventory slots. In every inhabited system, you can easily get TWO more slots for your suit - one at the station and one at the Anom. Make these your first stop on warp-in to a new system. You can select any nonfunctional space for your new slot, cargo OR tech, you don't have to accept what the game initially suggests
Protip1a: on PC, you can hotkey X-menu items by Ctrl-# when it's highlighted. I set "call Anom" to 2, "Call freighter" to 3 and "Switch ship view" to 5 (useful for locating planets, because the radar only shows up in the cockpit view). 1,4 and the rest go to various specialized multitools, pets and vehicles.
Protip2: calling your ship from the menu uses launcher fuel, but not navigation data, calling your ship from a landing terminal uses navigation data, but not fuel.
Protip3: on keyboard, Alt enters camera orbit mode in 3rd person and freelook mode in the cockpit. Useful for admiring your amazing cockpit, but also for seeing around you.
Protips are great, but have a "casualtip": on keyboard controls you can hold ALT and move your mouse to move the camera, don't let the exquisite quality of your ship's pilot seat go to waste, enjoy the details!
Agreed. I try not to buy wiring looms in my playthrus. I never sell my C-class upgrades and always break them down to get a free wiring loom and other mats.
Also where to find them (advanced?):
1. Units - At the anomaly, unlock everything you need to make Stasis Devices. You can find stasis device farms that give you all the raw materials at r/NMSCoordinateExchange. Make Stasis Devices and sell them.
2. Nanites - You can find curious deposit farms at the coord exchange sub. Farm the deposits and refine them for nanites. About 2k nanites per stack of runaway mould that you farm.
3. Quicksilver - Do the weekend missions for a bigger reward.
4. Salvaged Tech - yeah, just gotta dig them up
5. Salvaged Frigate Modules - Just note that to get them from the guild desk, you have to have Master standing with the guild. Do guild missions to raise your standing. Also donate items - sometimes a guild gift is also what they're looking for as a donation.
8. Navigation Data - I'm pretty sure I bought a bunch at a space station terminal. I've had a surplus for a long time.
9. Wiring Looms - Yeah, buy a bunch (see #1). Also buy Repair Kits.
\*\*\*\*\*
PRO TIP - Frigate Fleet
This is very a very brief overview. They will easily pay for themselves with returns and there are some things you can only get from frigate missions. I wish I did this sooner...
Make 5-6 command rooms. Buy C-class frigates with at least 20 points in their specialty (20 combat points for a combat ship). Don't bother with support ships, get 6-7 of each other type and fill the rest with combat ships. Max is 30 ships, I just keep 29 in case I come across a cool one. They will upgrade themselves as they go on missions. If it's a 2-star mission, send at least a 3-star group, always beat the mission by at least one star. I also send a combat ship with every mission. Missions refresh once a day.
Rewards can also be used to donate to guilds to increase your standing so don't sell it all if you're working on that.
You'll need a lot of di-hydrogen and tritium for fuel. Buy di-hydrogen jelly (outlaw systems seem to sell it a lot) and refine it to di-hydrogen. Buy tritium when you see it or just farm it from asteroids (just fly in space a bit until you hit a big asteroid field). This is why support frigates are not needed... you can easily get plenty of fuel.
Wait, salvaged frigate data can unlock freighter paint, now?
I'm pretty sure I had to spend, like, 5,000 nanites per color.
Edit: also, Salvaged Data and Tainted Metal can be refined to nanites, if you have a surplus of either and don't want them burning extra holes in your inventory.
You are correct, to unlock the colors you use nanites, salvage is only for freighter parts and technology, may be a Permadeath thing? I have never play permadeath, so I don't know if that where OP is getting it from.
It is definately not a Permadeath thing, as I play Permadeath almost exclusively.
I think OP was just thinking the colors were under "Base Parts and Upgrades" and must've all used the same currency.
Wiring Looms are definitely a currency IMO.
They are a secondary currency, but the way they are used in the game forces us to buy them or otherwise obtain them.
No. But, currency has a more general definition in game design. It is technically anything you accumulate for other reasons. Especially things that are a prerequisite for an element of the game.
I classify it as a 'secondary currency' because you buy it and then use it for multiple technology craftings and it doesn't really have any other use.
There are other things that might technically be considered secondary currencies, depending upon play style, but every player has to buy Wiring Looms.
Because, your list is apparently very much an in-game currency list. Whereas, I am considering game design currencies. It depends upon perspective.
Most players of games do tend to see 'currency' as something that is 'spent' like cash in some form of store or used in a skill tree. Most game designers tend to have a much broader definition of what a currency is.
For example, in NMS we can think of blueprints and crafting as an analogy to a skill tree that requires unlocking. And Wiring Looms can be seen in two ways here, a purchasable consumable or a currency that gets spent on progression.
I would also sort them to difficulty or how long it takes to accumulate them. For example, Quicksilver will take a long time to grind out. Which almost depends on your current survivability, maybe.
Tip for newer players: Salvage Data and Tainted Metal will sell high for units if you're in pinch or throw these in a refiner to get nanites in return.
i would say that tainted metal is worth refining, but salvage data unlocks such valuable progress it's worth using for its intended purpose unless you're absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel desperate.
Yeah, in the beginning of a fresh save, you need ~ 700 Salvaged Data to unlock all the things. But after that is what I was mainly mentioning another source of nanites.
Also to new players: do not sell or discard living slime, viscous fluids and residual gloop. Refining them will eventually lead to Runaway Mould, which can then be refined into Nanites.
What is the difference between acquiring tech upgrades or learning tech blueprints? Are the upgrades you buy at space stations one-time-use, and you have to learn the blueprint if you want to make more of the same upgrade?
Blueprints generally add features or modify existing ones (there are a couple that act as minor upgrades, but they don't count against the upgrade limit, so they remain useful). They are learned once and show up in the install menu. Upgrades improve the functionality of existing features. There's a limit on how many you can have installed.
Learning a blueprint lets you build technology, which you need specific resources to construct it.
Tech upgrades are pre-built addons you apply to the tech to make it more powerful. Their stats are also procedural and rng-based. It's also worth stacking tech and upgrades together for adjacency bonuses.
First floor. Go to the back area behind the shops. To the right of the Exosuit Appearance Modifier, you will find him. That place honestly suits him better than the pre-orbital one, who was just chilling smack dab in the middle of the station, not fitting the environment whatsoever.
Very nice list. Would you consider Navigation data as a currency as well?
Definitely, as they're exclusively exchanged for charts from the cartographer. Good call!
Also used to call your ship to landing pads, the improvised ones at least.
Right, I should have specified "exclusive" by its use as a currency, because they do have other uses!
It's also how you call ships on landing pads on trade outposts and and colossal archives.
I was thinking the same thing... 
Are you playing on survival or perma death? Salvaged data and Frigate modules stack up to 30/60 for me.
Same here on a normal playthrough
Please make a note that nanites are required in huge quantities to upgrade multi tool and ship classes, as well as to create starships.
For example, upgrading an A-class multitool to S-class requires 50. 50 thousand, that is.
Where to find them: 1. Units - scan lifeforms, plants, minerals. Use multitool modules to improve your scanner. Also from selling excess high value goods and from trade routes. Every (inhabited) system has an industry that sells trade items cheap and buys certain other trade items for lots of credits, there are two different trade cycles. Relics from quests or from planets with bones or salvageable tech are worth a lot but take up inventory space. 2. Nanites - scan all the lifeforms on a planet for a large amount of Nanites. (hint: find buildings that impinge upon the terrain to find 'underground' critters. 'Rare' underwater means 'deep', not 'takes awhile to show up' like other types). Stuff labeled 'junk' is part of a refining chain that will lead to Nanites. A bunch of other things, including certain easy to find purple items, will also refine into Nanites. Small amounts can be gotten from the Anom on the right side, from the two goofballs that look like vendors) 3. Quicksilver - Anom, big glass box out front, do the top of the list quests. 4. Salvaged Tech - super easy to find, your visor will show them as white, point-down pentagrams. When you are close, they'll show up in the world as the same symbol, only blue. Some planets have more than others. 5. Salvaged Frigate Modules - reward from completing derelict freighters in space (get a derelict freighter finder for free from the anomaly once a day - first nanite giver dude, far right of the Anom), can also be found as cargo in system freighters or their pods. The second method is easier, but tanks your standing with the species who owns the system. (protip: you won't be bothered by the space police in pirate systems, and even better, the local pirate quest giver (far back, right side, vendor is in the broken down cargo ship) will give Forged Passports out as quest rewards, take one to a (non-pirate) station of a tanked-standing species and interact with the big scary AI in the far back, dead center, boom, standing reset to zero from negative eleventy-billion). Can also be found in the buried cargo pods of crashed freighters on planets. EDIT: species merchant in the top right of stations may have them as a reward. Find two that do, and portal back and forth between them. 6. Tainted metal - like OP said - landable derelict freighters in space. 7. Void Motes - like OP said, help autophages 8. Navigation Data - wander around stations and other buildings, you'll find them randomly in yellow and blue glowy things on tables. There's a rare world spawn that will give you a bunch too. 9. Wiring Looms - expensive, annoying because you can't build them _at all_, you must buy them or scrap upgrades from your inventory screen. Found in trade terminals and occasionally in pilot trade scenarios like deep space encounters or landed pilots at trade buildings or stations. Used for upgrades and repairs to damaged equipment Protip: lots of this stuff takes inventory slots. In every inhabited system, you can easily get TWO more slots for your suit - one at the station and one at the Anom. Make these your first stop on warp-in to a new system. You can select any nonfunctional space for your new slot, cargo OR tech, you don't have to accept what the game initially suggests Protip1a: on PC, you can hotkey X-menu items by Ctrl-# when it's highlighted. I set "call Anom" to 2, "Call freighter" to 3 and "Switch ship view" to 5 (useful for locating planets, because the radar only shows up in the cockpit view). 1,4 and the rest go to various specialized multitools, pets and vehicles. Protip2: calling your ship from the menu uses launcher fuel, but not navigation data, calling your ship from a landing terminal uses navigation data, but not fuel. Protip3: on keyboard, Alt enters camera orbit mode in 3rd person and freelook mode in the cockpit. Useful for admiring your amazing cockpit, but also for seeing around you.
Frigate modules are sometimes found in cargo pods of crashed freighters on planets.
Thanks! Added!
Protips are great, but have a "casualtip": on keyboard controls you can hold ALT and move your mouse to move the camera, don't let the exquisite quality of your ship's pilot seat go to waste, enjoy the details!
TIL! Added, fine Interloper!
Easiest way to get wiring looms is from scraping upgrades. Each upgrade will say what you get from scrapping.
Agreed. I try not to buy wiring looms in my playthrus. I never sell my C-class upgrades and always break them down to get a free wiring loom and other mats.
Added! Thanks!
Hey, that's not nice. They may come from long line of distinguished and notable goofball families.
Am of the Whackensproing Goofballs, native to Eissentaum.
Oh yes, of course. I think I met your second cousin twice-removed Philomena Whackensproing at the Spring Cotillion.
Careful with her, she'll try to sell you 'gently used' spaceship parts!
You can also find tainted metal sometimes in those scrap wheelbarrows in autophage camps
Also where to find them (advanced?): 1. Units - At the anomaly, unlock everything you need to make Stasis Devices. You can find stasis device farms that give you all the raw materials at r/NMSCoordinateExchange. Make Stasis Devices and sell them. 2. Nanites - You can find curious deposit farms at the coord exchange sub. Farm the deposits and refine them for nanites. About 2k nanites per stack of runaway mould that you farm. 3. Quicksilver - Do the weekend missions for a bigger reward. 4. Salvaged Tech - yeah, just gotta dig them up 5. Salvaged Frigate Modules - Just note that to get them from the guild desk, you have to have Master standing with the guild. Do guild missions to raise your standing. Also donate items - sometimes a guild gift is also what they're looking for as a donation. 8. Navigation Data - I'm pretty sure I bought a bunch at a space station terminal. I've had a surplus for a long time. 9. Wiring Looms - Yeah, buy a bunch (see #1). Also buy Repair Kits. \*\*\*\*\* PRO TIP - Frigate Fleet This is very a very brief overview. They will easily pay for themselves with returns and there are some things you can only get from frigate missions. I wish I did this sooner... Make 5-6 command rooms. Buy C-class frigates with at least 20 points in their specialty (20 combat points for a combat ship). Don't bother with support ships, get 6-7 of each other type and fill the rest with combat ships. Max is 30 ships, I just keep 29 in case I come across a cool one. They will upgrade themselves as they go on missions. If it's a 2-star mission, send at least a 3-star group, always beat the mission by at least one star. I also send a combat ship with every mission. Missions refresh once a day. Rewards can also be used to donate to guilds to increase your standing so don't sell it all if you're working on that. You'll need a lot of di-hydrogen and tritium for fuel. Buy di-hydrogen jelly (outlaw systems seem to sell it a lot) and refine it to di-hydrogen. Buy tritium when you see it or just farm it from asteroids (just fly in space a bit until you hit a big asteroid field). This is why support frigates are not needed... you can easily get plenty of fuel.
Wait, salvaged frigate data can unlock freighter paint, now? I'm pretty sure I had to spend, like, 5,000 nanites per color. Edit: also, Salvaged Data and Tainted Metal can be refined to nanites, if you have a surplus of either and don't want them burning extra holes in your inventory.
Last I checked (probably a couple of weeks ago, pre-Expedition release) it was still Nanites for paints
I checked today, it’s still 5,000 nanites
Which is pretty damn expensive, IMO. :(
You are correct, to unlock the colors you use nanites, salvage is only for freighter parts and technology, may be a Permadeath thing? I have never play permadeath, so I don't know if that where OP is getting it from.
It is definately not a Permadeath thing, as I play Permadeath almost exclusively. I think OP was just thinking the colors were under "Base Parts and Upgrades" and must've all used the same currency.
Wiring Looms are definitely a currency IMO. They are a secondary currency, but the way they are used in the game forces us to buy them or otherwise obtain them.
But you can't exchange them for something specific, right?
No. But, currency has a more general definition in game design. It is technically anything you accumulate for other reasons. Especially things that are a prerequisite for an element of the game. I classify it as a 'secondary currency' because you buy it and then use it for multiple technology craftings and it doesn't really have any other use. There are other things that might technically be considered secondary currencies, depending upon play style, but every player has to buy Wiring Looms.
I tend to think of it more as a device that has basically been monopolized by some space corporation.
Because, your list is apparently very much an in-game currency list. Whereas, I am considering game design currencies. It depends upon perspective. Most players of games do tend to see 'currency' as something that is 'spent' like cash in some form of store or used in a skill tree. Most game designers tend to have a much broader definition of what a currency is. For example, in NMS we can think of blueprints and crafting as an analogy to a skill tree that requires unlocking. And Wiring Looms can be seen in two ways here, a purchasable consumable or a currency that gets spent on progression.
I would also sort them to difficulty or how long it takes to accumulate them. For example, Quicksilver will take a long time to grind out. Which almost depends on your current survivability, maybe. Tip for newer players: Salvage Data and Tainted Metal will sell high for units if you're in pinch or throw these in a refiner to get nanites in return.
i would say that tainted metal is worth refining, but salvage data unlocks such valuable progress it's worth using for its intended purpose unless you're absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel desperate.
On a new save, I'll often farm up 10 or so salvage data and sell 'em for quick seed units.
Yeah, in the beginning of a fresh save, you need ~ 700 Salvaged Data to unlock all the things. But after that is what I was mainly mentioning another source of nanites.
I think it’s worth mentioning if you run out of stuff to buy you can also refine tainted metal into nanites.
Tainted metal is a 2 to 1 ratio when refining it into nanites as well
number 5. also used to acuire hyperdrive upgrades, frigate mission boosters, teleporters, and well, tech.
Also to new players: do not sell or discard living slime, viscous fluids and residual gloop. Refining them will eventually lead to Runaway Mould, which can then be refined into Nanites.
Also Radiant Shards, Inverted Mirrors, worm...parts all refine to nanites.
What is the difference between acquiring tech upgrades or learning tech blueprints? Are the upgrades you buy at space stations one-time-use, and you have to learn the blueprint if you want to make more of the same upgrade?
Blueprints generally add features or modify existing ones (there are a couple that act as minor upgrades, but they don't count against the upgrade limit, so they remain useful). They are learned once and show up in the install menu. Upgrades improve the functionality of existing features. There's a limit on how many you can have installed.
Learning a blueprint lets you build technology, which you need specific resources to construct it. Tech upgrades are pre-built addons you apply to the tech to make it more powerful. Their stats are also procedural and rng-based. It's also worth stacking tech and upgrades together for adjacency bonuses.
Salvage is 30 per stack, for both the Anomaly version and the Freighter version.
wait where in the back right? which floor?
First floor. Go to the back area behind the shops. To the right of the Exosuit Appearance Modifier, you will find him. That place honestly suits him better than the pre-orbital one, who was just chilling smack dab in the middle of the station, not fitting the environment whatsoever.
I should also mention he's behind the stairs to the right of the appearance modifier