Subnautica 2 Metal Farm: Blueprint, Recipes and Power

01

Metal Farm vs. Karakorum Metal Farms

When players talk about the metal farm in Subnautica 2, they can mean two different things. The Metal Farm is the machine you build, listed under Cultivation Structures in the Habitat Builder next to the Growbed. The Karakorum Metal Farms are a place: an abandoned Axum industrial basin in the Karakorum Ruins region, which Unknown Worlds' patch notes also call the Axum Metal Farms. You need the place to get the machine, because both the blueprint and its rarest ingredient come from there.

The game's databank explains the idea: the Axum apparently developed electrowinning, pulling dissolved metal out of seawater with an electric current, and your farm copies it. Its operating steps are short: power the farm, insert a sample as a catalyst, wait for a deposit to form, then shatter it and collect the metal.

02

Metal Farm blueprint location and how to unlock it

To unlock the blueprint, scan the Axum metal farm structures built around the Karakorum Metal Farms. The wiki's infobox lists 3 fragments, and the area's databank entry says scanning them creates blueprints for a colonist metal farm. The wiki's Recipe Data Card list doesn't include the Metal Farm, so scanning is the only documented route, and the wiki doesn't give coordinates for individual scannable farms.

The Karakorum Metal Farms sit northeast of the Karakorum Power Plant, on the eastern side of the playable area next to the Root Canyon. The wiki lists the area at 470 m deep, and industrial runoff there forms bright green pools that are hard to miss. Since update 1.2, the Metal Farm voice line plays when you scan a farm rather than when you first arrive.

03

Metal Farm recipe: build cost and ingredients

The Metal Farm recipe is 1 Axum Ingot plus 1 Axum Bacterial Culture at the Habitat Builder. Both ingredients take some work.

Axum Ingots are made at the Processor from 1 Titanium Ingot, 1 Atacamite and 1 Troilite in 0:30. Troilite comes from Mineralized Clinkers in the Karakorum Metal Farms, which you crack with the Sonic Resonator and which, unlike most deposits, respawn after a while. Atacamite deposits sit below the Karakorum Power Plant and inside the Metal Farms area, but since update 1.2 the Sonic Resonator can't harvest them. You need the Feedback Resonator, which costs 2 Conduit Crystals among other things.

Axum Bacterial Culture is the real bottleneck. It grows as a cluster inside a cage you must break first, in the glowing runoff pools of the Karakorum Metal Farms. The wiki calls it a finite resource with only five known samples, and its databank says it can't be fabricated, even by a biobed. Each farm needs one, so pick your farm sites carefully. Here are the five spots, with coordinates and depths exactly as listed on the official wiki:

Since update 1.2 the culture is also scannable, which adds its databank entry.

04

Power needs and troubleshooting

The Metal Farm's description warns of a very high power draw, and the wiki says a placed farm uses 20 units of electricity. It doesn't say whether that figure is per second, so leave plenty of headroom. The farm only works while submerged and connected to power. If power cuts out or falls short, the timer pauses and resumes once enough electricity returns, so you don't lose progress.

Several power bugs were fixed in the Buddy System update (1.2, August 19, 2026). Farms no longer keep producing while the UI shows a lack of power, and the false "Warning Power Offline" message on finished farms is gone. Farms chained in a series no longer lose power when the first farm, the one connected to base power, completes its cycle. Farms also stop working when moved out of range of their power source, so keep them within range. Buddy System Hotfix 2 then fixed Thermal and Hydroelectric generators losing or misreporting power after being streamed out and back into the world, which matters if your farm runs on those generators, because a farm pauses whenever its power falls short.

For generation, the wiki lists Bioreactors at 1 to 20 energy per second, Thermal Plants at 1 to 16, Hydroelectric Turbines at 12 in a natural current, and Solar Panels at 1 to 8 with reduced output at night or in deep water. A Fallback Power Storage, built from 1 Germanium Ingot, 3 Titanium and 2 Salt after two fragment scans, banks surplus power when generation beats consumption and releases it during a shortfall. You can toggle it on or off at its display.

05

Metal Farm production recipes

Every recipe uses one sample of the material itself. Durations and outputs are as the wiki lists them.

To start a cycle, put a sample in the farm's storage; the wiki says the sample isn't consumed. A filter at the bottom slowly rises to show the deposit growing. When it's done, break the node with the Sonic Resonator to collect the material, and the farm starts over. The wiki names the Sonic Resonator for this step and doesn't say whether a farm-grown Atacamite node needs the Feedback Resonator, which wild Atacamite has required since update 1.2. That update also stopped a swapped sample in a busy farm from inheriting the old timer, so each material runs on its own duration.

Several of the slower materials feed key recipes. Celestine refines into Strontium, Creature Enamel goes into Enameled Glass, and Atacamite and Troilite are two of the three Axum Ingot ingredients; the wiki lists 10 Axum Ingots for repairing the Karakorum Power Plant turbine alone. The 2:00 materials refill fastest if you just need bulk building stock, and the resources guide covers the wider list of raw materials.

06

What's in the Karakorum Metal Farms

The area is a large, multi-layered basin centred on a green pool, ringed by Axum metal farms, with an inaccessible Axum building overlooking it from the side facing away from the power plant. Besides the farms you scan, it holds Atacamite, the five Axum Bacterial Cultures and Mineralized Clinkers for Troilite. Nearby you'll find two Feedback Resonator fragments inside the farms (-115902, 394606 @ 430m and -134737, 395233 @ 472m), the Cavitation Muffler data card at a worksite near the farms (-145201, 402123 @ 375m) and an Advanced Battery fragment on a cliff at the south-west edge (-145311, 402215 @ 375m).

One Collector Leviathan patrols the water above the farms; the other roams the Intermediary Basin trench. The wiki says it won't notice you as long as you stay deeper than 350 m, and if it does catch you, it can kill you instantly in a short cinematic. It can't be killed itself, and Distraction Flares, the Camouflage biomod and the Cavitation Muffler all help you avoid it. A Collector spawns somewhere in its zone shortly after a player enters, and Buddy System Hotfix 1 improved its pathing in the lower canyon areas. The leviathans guide has more.

Smaller threats are listed too. Epicureans and Twin Sitarays are aggressive, and the Sitaray's electric pulse can drain your vehicle's power, while Tongue Thieves and Blackthorns are passive. Epicureans won't chase or damage a vehicle you're piloting. On the technical side, update 1.1 fixed performance degrading over time in the Metal Farms area, and update 1.2 sealed a spot in its southwest where players could get under the map. For where the Karakorum Ruins sit, see the map and biomes guide.