Your Starter Lifelines
Every vessel begins equipped with an Emergency Printer and Emergency Processor, allowing you to refine raw resources and manufacture essential equipment directly from your ship.
These facilities are designed to support your first steps in the Frontier. The Emergency Printer now focuses on a streamlined selection of early-game essentials, including scanners, cutting lasers, repair modules, fuel, consumables, and other critical survival equipment.
While invaluable during your early journey, these emergency facilities are only the beginning of a much larger industrial progression.
Scaling Up with Deployables
As your ambitions grow, mobile emergency facilities become increasingly limiting. To establish a permanent industrial foothold, you'll need to deploy structures in space.
Begin by anchoring a Network Node, which provides the power infrastructure required to operate industrial assemblies. Once online, you can expand your operation by deploying dedicated Refineries, Printers, storage facilities, and other industrial structures.
A well-developed outpost transforms a simple mining operation into a self-sustaining manufacturing hub.
Step 1: Extracting Resources
Asteroids are no longer simple resource nodes that disappear as they are harvested. Each asteroid is a layered body with its own internal composition. Different materials may be hidden beneath outer layers, rewarding Riders who persist and learn to read the rock.
Using a Cutting Laser will break fragments from the asteroid's surface. These fragments become Regoliths, which can then be collected and processed.
Regoliths are divided into five material families:
- Silicate Regoliths
- Carbonaceous Regoliths
- Metallic Regoliths
- Sulfide Regoliths
- Volatile Regoliths
Different materials resist cutting differently, meaning denser deposits often take longer to extract than softer material closer to the surface.
Step 2: Refining Raw Resources
Raw Regoliths and harvested resources aren't immediately useful. Before they can be turned into equipment, they must first be processed into refined materials.
Deploy a Refinery and transfer your resources into the input slot to begin processing.
Available refining options include:
- Refinery - Reliable processing for everyday industrial needs.
- Heavy Refinery - Designed for large-scale industrial operations and advanced processing chains.
Refining provides the components required for manufacturing everything from ship modules and consumables to structures and infrastructure.
Step 3: Expanding Your Industrial Toolbox
Cycle 7 introduces a more structured industrial progression path.
Instead of relying entirely on emergency facilities, Riders can now manufacture and deploy dedicated industrial equipment aboard their ships.
Important milestones include:
Printer
The Printer serves as the next step beyond the Emergency Printer, unlocking a substantially larger manufacturing catalogue and access to more advanced production chains.
Refinery
A dedicated refining facility capable of handling a wider range of processing tasks and resource conversions.
Material Processor
Used for specialized processing and advanced industrial workflows, helping transform raw resources into higher-value manufacturing components.
Unlocking these facilities is often the difference between surviving in the Frontier and thriving in it.
Step 4: Manufacturing Equipment
Manufacturing revolves around selecting a production recipe, providing the required materials, and letting your facility do the work.
The process is straightforward:
- Select what you want to build.
- Supply the required materials.
- Start the production job.
- Collect the finished product.
As your industry expands, you'll gain access to increasingly powerful equipment and infrastructure.
Printer tiers include:
- Mini Printer - Produces essential modules and industrial equipment.
- Printer - Unlocks a far broader manufacturing catalogue.
- Heavy Printer - Supports advanced and high-end industrial production.
Build Fast, Scale Smart
Flexibility is your ally. You can withdraw materials mid-job if plans change, giving you room to adapt without wasting resources. The faster you anchor a Network Node and set up proper Refineries and Printers, the faster you’ll evolve from scraping Regoliths to commanding Industry. In Frontier, efficiency isn’t just progress; it’s survival.