Where to Farm Key Ores Without Losing Your Mind
If this part of The Planet Crafter feels messy, you are absolutely not alone. These four materials are a very common progression wall. The good news: once you know where to look, farming gets way more predictable.
The map is split into biomes (distinct regions with different terrain and resource spawns), and each key ore is much more reliable in certain biomes than others. Keep your runs short and repeatable: bring oxygen, water, food, empty inventory space, and place beacons so your best mining spots are easy to revisit.
Aluminum is usually your first consistent target and is commonly found in the Aluminum Hills/gray rocky-spire biome. Iridium is most dependable in iridium cave routes (especially the sandfall iridium cave), and later through iridium meteor showers triggered by the Magnetic Field Protection Rocket. Uranium can feel tight early, then becomes much more practical once you can trigger uranium meteor showers with the Asteroid Attraction Rocket and mine uranium caves with a T2 extractor. Super Alloy starts as a high-value pickup from select caves and crates, then gets much easier once you can craft it at the Advanced Craft Station and mine it with a T2+ extractor in the Super Alloy cave.
Best Progression Flow
Early game, hand-collect aluminum and iridium while saving every super alloy you find for important crafts. In mid game, move to an Ore Extractor (a machine that repeatedly mines ore from the local ground) placed directly in the biome that contains the resource you need. In late game, use multiple extractors and automation so your base produces these materials in the background while you terraform.
If progress feels slow, try this coaching reset: pick one bottleneck resource, run only that route for 10 focused minutes, then return and batch-craft everything. That single-resource sprint is the fastest way to recover momentum and break out of the "I searched everywhere and got nothing" loop.