The last Aquarq is in the side tunnel, not the main cave
You need 7 or 10 of them, and the one you cannot find is almost always in the side cave. The wiki is unusually direct about this: Point Extraction caves “always have at least one small tunnel that leads to a medium sized cave. Keep a sharp eye out for this cave, as it can be hard to spot.” The Minehead always lands in the general centre of the main cavern.
That side cave is where the missing Aquarq usually is. The mistake players make is sweeping the main cavern again at the end of the mission, when they should have found the side tunnel in the first minute and dropped a flare in it.
The game already tells you which deposits are done
You do not have to remember. Per the wiki:
- The spot where an Aquarq is buried is dotted with small blue crystals that glow in unlit areas.
- “Once an Aquarq has been extracted, the crystals previously surrounding it will no longer glow.”
- The Aquarq itself “emits a bright blue glow that is visible through thin walls”, and since Update 33 it emits a quiet humming sound.
That gives you three independent search channels: glow through thin walls, humming audio, and glowing marker crystals = not yet taken. If a marker cluster is dark, stop digging there — it is already collected.
What you are actually looking for
| Aquarq (Point Extraction) | Morkite (Mining Expedition) | |
|---|---|---|
| Required | 7 or 10, by mission length | 200–400 units, into the M.U.L.E. |
| XP each | 25 | 1 |
| Mission payout | 7 → 445 Credits / 1,225 XP · 10 → 650 Credits / 1,750 XP | — |
| Where it hides | Embedded in cave walls, dug out with pickaxe or terrain-destroying tools | Walls and surfaces, dark teal, “faces glimmer in dark caverns” — visible with no light |
| Spawn note | Can appear in any biome | “Seems to spawn slightly more frequently than Nitra” |
| Carried how | Heavy object: hand-carried, or by Bosco | Normal inventory, deposited in the M.U.L.E. |
Carrying an Aquarq: the rules that lose missions
Aquarqs are heavy objects, and heavy objects have their own physics:
- 25% movement speed penalty, and sprinting is disabled.
- While carrying you can only throw flares, ride ziplines and move.
- You drop it by switching weapons, using the Laser Pointer or throwing a grenade — or by throwing it deliberately.
- Vertical speed above 10 m/s (up or down) drops it automatically. Do not ride a zipline down a long shaft with one.
- Bosco can carry it, which is why solo Point Extraction is viable.
Why searching for too long gets you killed
Point Extraction does not wait for you. Enemies spawn in constant pressure waves:
| Timer | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Wave delay | Starts at 55 seconds, then decreases by 1 second per wave until it hits a floor set by Hazard Level |
| Wave difficulty | Starts increasing after the 10th wave, then keeps climbing |
| Announced swarms (Hazard 1–4) | ≈ 4m29s and 10m09s |
| Announced swarms (Hazard 5) | 3m59s and 9m39s |
| Hazard 3 and below | A Dreadnought can spawn instead of a normal wave |
| After the Minehead launches | Spawns continue until the mission ends |
The 1-second-per-wave decay is the part that punishes a slow search: the cost of “just one more sweep” compounds. Pressure waves are mostly Glyphid Grunts, Slashers and Guards, plus Swarmers and Web Spitters if they are in the spawn pool.
Finishing the mission
Once the primary objective is complete, a red button appears on the Minehead. Press it and Mission Control sends the Drop Pod — which takes two minutes to arrive, then stays open three minutes before leaving with or without you. Enemies keep spawning the whole time.
Two Minehead details worth knowing: bugs can attack through its metal mesh, so do not hold the platform, and a dwarf is instantly downed if the Minehead lands on them.
If you are short on Morkite instead
Morkite is a volume problem, not a search problem — you need 200–400 units of a mineral worth 1 XP each. Two things help:
- Morkite glimmers in the dark without light, so scan ceiling and wall faces methodically rather than tunnelling.
- The Dark Morkite drink at the Abyss Bar increases Morkite mined by 20% (added in Update 18). It is one of the few direct multipliers on a primary objective.
Check the missions guide for how Point Extraction sits among other mission types, and the biomes guide for how cave shape changes what you can see from the drop point.
A note on the Minehead deposit loop
Point Extraction has no M.U.L.E. — the Minehead is your only deposit point, and you carry Aquarqs to it by hand (or via Bosco). That changes the routing: find and flare the side cave in the first minute, not on a last sweep while the wave timer compounds.
If your struggle is Morkite instead, the hazards guide explains how mission length sets the quota, and the creatures guide covers what spawns in the pressure waves. The overclock grind and promotion system is what those Cores and Credits ultimately fund.