The planet decides the pool, not the mission
Most farming questions are answered by one rule: every region of the Star Chart has a fixed pool of about four resources, and which resource you get is decided by where you are, not by what mission you run.
Break a container on Saturn and you roll Saturn’s pool. Break one on Earth and you roll Earth’s. The mission type changes how many times you roll, never what is on the table.
This is why “where do I farm X” has a short answer for almost every resource, and why running a resource mission on the wrong planet is a pure waste of time regardless of how fast it is.
Each pool has one common resource in large quantities, one or two uncommon resources, and one rare. The rare one is what most players are actually hunting.
Where to farm each resource
Rarity in brackets, pickup quantity after it. The rare resource in each pool is the one that usually sends you there.
| Resource | Planets and rarity |
|---|---|
| Alloy Plate | Venus (Common, 50–150), Ceres (Common, 50–150), Sedna (Common, 50–150), Zariman (Common), Phobos, Jupiter, Pluto (Uncommon) |
| Argon Crystal | Void only (Rare, 1) |
| Circuits | Venus (Common, 35–50), Ceres (Common, 35–50), Kuva Fortress (Uncommon) |
| Control Module | Europa (Rare, 1–3), Neptune (Rare, 1–3), Void (Uncommon, 1–3) |
| Detonite Ampule | Mercury, Earth, Lua, Ceres, Saturn, Uranus, Sedna, Kuva Fortress (Uncommon, 1) |
| Entrati Lanthorn | Zariman only (Rare, 1) |
| Ferrite | Mercury, Earth, Lua, Neptune, Void, Zariman (Common, 50–100) |
| Fieldron Sample | Neptune, Pluto (Common, 1), Venus, Mars, Europa (Uncommon, 1) |
| Gallium | Mars (Rare, 1–2), Uranus (Rare, 1–2) |
| Hexenon | Jupiter only (Uncommon, 5–10) |
| Morphics | Mercury, Phobos, Europa, Pluto (Rare, 1), Mars (Uncommon, 1) |
| Mutagen Sample | Deimos (Uncommon, 1), Eris (Rare, 1) |
| Nano Spores | Deimos, Saturn, Eris (Common, 150–200), Neptune (Uncommon) |
| Neural Sensors | Jupiter (Rare, 1–2), Kuva Fortress (Rare, 1–2) |
| Neurodes | Earth, Lua, Deimos, Eris (Rare, 1) |
| Orokin Cell | Deimos, Ceres, Saturn (Rare, 1) |
| Plastids | Saturn, Uranus (Common, 15–25), Phobos, Pluto, Eris (Uncommon) |
| Polymer Bundle | Venus, Uranus (Common, 40–75), Mercury (Uncommon) |
| Rubedo | Europa, Pluto, Lua (Common, 15–25), Earth, Phobos, Sedna, Void (Uncommon) |
| Salvage | Mars, Jupiter, Sedna, Kuva Fortress (Common, 75–150) |
| Voidgel Orb | Zariman only (Uncommon, 1) |
The resources that ignore the planet rule
Four resources do not follow the pool, and each one catches players out.
Cryotic — Excavation only. No region pool contains it. If you need Cryotic, you run Excavation, and the reward comes per excavator rather than from the pool.
Tellurium — any Archwing or submersible mission. On those missions Tellurium replaces the rare region resource, so the pool still applies but the rare slot pays Tellurium instead of the planet’s normal rare.
Oxium — Oxium Ospreys. It drops from the drone, not from the pool, which means Corpus missions with high Osprey density beat any “best planet” answer.
Kuva — Kuva Siphons and bounties. Siphons on planets near the Kuva Fortress, or the uncommon bounty reward. No pool includes it.
Nitain Extract behaves the same way in practice: it is a Nightwave and alert currency far more than a farm, and no region pool contains it.
Argon crystals are the one farm you cannot bank
Argon is Void only, one at a time, and it decays on a real-time clock.
That makes it the one resource where farming ahead is pointless. Decide what you are building, check how much Argon the blueprint needs, then farm it in the same session you craft.
Players who stockpile Argon lose it to the timer and farm it twice.
Endless missions pay for time, short ones pay for speed
Since the pool is fixed, the mission type is purely a question of roll volume per minute.
Endless missions — defence, survival, interception, excavation — give you a long stream of enemies and containers in one instance. They are the right shape when you need a large quantity of a common resource or many attempts at a rare.
Capture is the fastest mission in the game and the right pick when the reward is tied to completion rather than to enemy drops.
Sabotage with caches adds a second table on top of the mission reward, which makes it worth the detour when a cache reward overlaps what you need.
The mistake is leaving a survival at ten minutes. Later rotations carry the rewards worth having, and the resource rolls keep coming the whole time.
Stack the drop rolls
A farming frame does not change the pool. It multiplies how many times the pool is consulted.
- Nekros — Desecrate adds extra rolls on corpses.
- Khora with Pilfering Strangledome — additional drop chance on enemies held in the dome.
- Hydroid with Pilfering Swarm — the same effect through his swarm.
A squad running all three is the standard answer to a stubborn rare. Solo, Nekros is the simplest because Desecrate needs no setup beyond the corpse.
Landscape resources are a separate case: on the Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis and Cambion Drift, ore and gems come from mining deposits with a mining tool rather than from enemy drops, and the drop-roll frames do nothing for them.
Farm two things at once
The highest-value habit in the game: pick the mission that drops the relic you need on the planet that drops the resource you need.
You are already running the mission. The resource is free. Most players farm relics and resources in separate sessions and spend twice the time for the same result.
See the relics and Prime guide for which relics come from which mission types, and the star chart guide for what unlocks where.
Five mistakes that cost the most time
Farming a rare on the wrong planet. Neurodes on Saturn do not exist. Check the table before you launch.
Farming Argon ahead of time. It decays. Farm it the session you craft.
Ignoring the uncommon slot. Plastids are uncommon on Phobos but common on Saturn, and the common slot pays several times the quantity.
Running a long mission for a common resource. If you need 5,000 Nano Spores, Deimos or Saturn common drops at 150–200 per pickup beat any rare-hunting run.
Skipping the squad. Three drop-roll frames turn a bad hour into a good one.