hope this article can help:
Guardian Material Farming - Simplified™
So, you want to fight Thargoids? Or that juicy FSD Booster module? Or maybe just max out all your Guardian materials, you know, just in case? Look no further! I have created some some visual and textual aid which is
not a 20-minute video guide with dubstep intros or endless streams of "Hit that like button and subscribe!".
Disclaimer: Despite the title saying it's 'simplified', this guide is still relatively long. But that is the nature of farming these materials, so that everything is clear. I am also well aware of multiple guides having been written out already, but in this particular one I will be focusing on two aspects: friendliness to new(er) players, speed, and safety.
First things first.
- Your ship: any ship will do, as long as it has two things: an SRV bay with an SRV, and a point defence in the utility slot. Do bear in mind this location is around 1000Ly from the bubble, so obviously higher jump range and a fuel scoop are recommended.
- The location: planet B 3 at system Synuefe NL-N C23-4, a single guardian structure (so not the 3 instances of ruins). You should try to land close to the structure, preferably a bit higher than the ground level of the structure. This way, the point defence can shoot down the missiles from the Sentinels that spawn around the map.
There are a few things to acquire from this site. I made a comprehensive map which you can find
here. Note, this map is mostly used for later farming purposes, so it doesn't include the location of every tower with destructible panels (there are 4 of them), or the separate single destructible panels around the site (ignore these save for one mentioned later).
- Guardian Module Blueprint Fragments, acquired from the final data vault at the top of the site.
- 5 different Obelisk Patterns: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Acquired from scanning the obelisks with a data link scanner.
- Guardian Power Cells, Guardian Power Conduits, and Guardian Technology Components: mostly dropped from the 'towers' with 3 destructible panels, and on occasion by Sentinels.
- Guardian Sentinel Weapons Parts and Wreckage Components: dropped from only Sentinels.
The Module Blueprint Fragments are required by a grand total of 6 blueprints, so 6 full runs of the instance should be enough to never need them ever again. A very in-depth guide to running this site can be found
here, however the condensed version without an exorbitant number of screenshots is this:
- After landing, make your way to the top of the structure where the data vault is. If you take a direct center path from bottom to top, you will not run into any Sentinels to begin with. If you can, make a detour to one of the pylons that rise from the ground and shoot the glowin assembly on top, and pick up the relic that drops from it. You will need this later.
- One of the power pylons will appear from the ground, this is the first one you need to trigger so the others can be triggered to actually come out of the ground afterwards. Shoot the blue glowing orb repeatedly until it plays a sound reminiscent of the THX sound, and move on to the next one according to the map I linked earlier. If you're smart about the Sentinel trigger zones, you will face minimal resistance while doing so.
- Once you have all 6 pylons charged, you can head on to the data vault again. Eject the relic you picked up earlier in the glowing area right in front of it, and the data vault will trigger. Give it a few seconds to open, target it, and scan it with the data link scanner. Warning: Sentinels will spawn, although they spawn in the farther reaches of the site, but considering their AI is very stupid, you can largely cheese them from a distance or peek from behind cover to take potshots at them. Your point defense will take care of any missiles, or most of them. When engaging sentinels, keep 4 pips in WEP and 2 in SYS. You don't need a lot of speed since you will mostly be peeking.
- Target the data vault, scan it, and you will have a blueprint fragment.
- Go just outside the site, relog, and repeat until you have your desired number of Module Blueprint Fragments.
While running this, if you take small detours to both the obelisks as well as the material drop towers, you will most probably max out everything but the tech components and obelisk scan data. This is where the next part comes in.
Guardian Tech Components: the green circles represent guaranteed drop locations for them. The top one is a destructible panel, the tower right under it has 1 panel which drops them, and the last tower has two more. You can drive a route while evading the red Sentinel spawn zones, relog, and repeat the same route backwards until you max them out.
Obelisk Scan Data: this is a bit more tricky considering the drop rate seems rather random. Follow the blue route on the map between all 5 obelisks, the route takes care of evading the sentinels already. Rinse and repeat a forward-backward route with every relog, just like with the tech components. You will most likely max out one of the scan data first, which means that if it drops again, you won't get anything.
Alternative: you can do this entirely risk free at the actual ruins found on some planets too, check the last entry in the credits for this. Reason for this being that I focused on sticking just to this particulat location, as you
can get everything here too with quite a similar efficiency.
This should cover everything you can get from this site. If you keep running into Sentinels more often, look where they spawn, and adjust your route accordingly, since their spawn radius on my map is at best an approximate one. Now, if you need the Weapon Blueprint Fragments or Vessel Blueprint Fragments, there are other sites that cover this, but the general tactics remain the same, and at that point, you don't have to worry about any other materials so you can freely just run the 6 pylons and get those only.
If I missed anything please let me know in the comments. I've had great success running things like this, so I hope this helps some people.