Tainted Metal is a resource in No Man’s Sky added with the Origins update. Using it, players can refine Nanites or spend it to get items from the Black Market. However, this resource is rare because there are very few ways to pick it up. This guide explains how to farm Tainted Metal, so you always have enough in your inventory.
Explore derelict freighters
The only way to get Tainted Metal is by exploring derelict freighters and collecting it from the containers inside them. While you can stumble across these when flying around any given system using your Pulse Engine, it’s far more efficient to head to the closest space station and acquire some coordinates from the Scrap Dealer.
Scrap Dealers are regarded as dirty by the other vendors in space stations, so they set up shop in tents off to the side. The coordinates for a derelict freighter aren’t cheap, starting at 2 million Units and going up each time you buy more. However, if you want to farm Tainted Metal, this is the best way to do it. Once you’ve acquired the coordinates, you’ll need to travel to the waypoint and then use your Pulse Engines to get the derelict freighter to appear.
The interior of a derelict freighter is so cold that it will kill you if you don’t take time to restore your shields next to every heater. Do this as you explore the area and search inside every container you come across. If you only do this, you should generate roughly 8500 Tainted Metal in one hour, though that depends on how quickly you explore the derelict freighters and what the interiors are made of, since some containers have higher drop rates than others.
