You finally got your hands on a capital ship. It's massive. It's intimidating. You’re ready to turn this floating fortress into a mobile resource empire. Naturally, you look at the build menu and see it: the stellar extractor room. It sounds like peak sci-fi tech. It looks cool. But if you’ve spent more than five minutes on the No Man’s Sky subreddits, you’ve probably seen the absolute vitriol directed at this specific freighter module.
People hate it. Well, mostly.
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Honestly, the stellar extractor room is one of the most misunderstood and, frankly, glitchy additions Hello Games ever dropped in an update. It’s meant to be a "set it and forget it" passive income stream for your freighter. It literally sucks gases right out of the vacuum of space based on the star system you're currently parked in. Chromatic Metal? Sure. Nitrogen for your high-end crafting? You bet. But there is a massive gulf between how it’s supposed to work and how it actually behaves when you're jumping through the Euclid galaxy.
What the Stellar Extractor Room Actually Does
Let's talk mechanics. Most players think they can just slap twenty of these rooms down and retire on a beach in the Eissentam galaxy. It doesn't quite work that way. The room functions as a passive harvester. Unlike an atmospheric harvester on a planet surface, you don't need to fuel this with Carbon or anything else. It just runs.
The output depends entirely on the spectral class of the sun in your current system. If you are in a yellow star system, you’re getting Chromatic Metal. If you warp to a red, green, or blue system, you’ll start pulling in specific gases like Sulphurine, Radon, or Nitrogen. It’s a clean system on paper.
But here is the kicker: the rate is slow.
We are talking about roughly 15 units of a resource every 15 to 20 minutes. It's not a flood. It's a trickle. If you are trying to build Stasis Devices or Fusion Ignitors—the big money makers—you need thousands of units of these gases. Relying solely on a few extractor rooms is like trying to fill a swimming pool with a leaky eye-dropper.
The Glitch That Ruins Everything
Here is why most veteran players will tell you to delete the room immediately. There is a persistent, soul-crushing bug.
No Man's Sky has a weird relationship with "persistent" inventories in freighter rooms. Frequently, if you warp your freighter to a new system, or even if you just fly too far away in your starship, the stellar extractor room resets. You come back expecting a stack of 100 Nitrogen, and you find... nothing. Empty. The machine has forgotten it was ever working.
This isn't just a minor annoyance. It fundamentally breaks the "passive" nature of the device. If you have to stand in the room and watch it like a pot of boiling water just to make sure the resources don't vanish into the digital ether, it’s not really passive income, is it? It’s basically a glorified paperweight that occasionally gives you a handful of dust.
Hello Games has patched freighter persistence several times since the Endurance update, and for some players, it works better now. But for a huge chunk of the community, the "vanishing loot" bug remains a dealbreaker.
How to Actually Make It Work
If you’re determined to use it—maybe because you like the aesthetic or you just want every possible room type on your S-Class Resurgent—there are ways to minimize the headache.
First, don't build just one. If you're going to bother, build a block of eight or ten. Because the yield is so low, a single room is statistically irrelevant.
Second, treat it as a "while I'm crafting" bonus. Don't leave the freighter. If you are busy organizing your storage containers, refining large batches of nanites, or decorating your bridge, the stellar extractor room will actually fill up. The loss of resources usually happens during "instance transitions"—like warping, teleporting, or reloading a save. If you stay on the ship, the timer ticks up reliably.
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System Color vs. Resource Output
You need to know where to park.
- Yellow Systems: These produce Chromatic Metal. Honestly? Waste of time. You can get Chromatic Metal much faster by refining Copper or just buying it at a trade terminal for pennies.
- Red Systems: These pull Radon. This is actually useful for crafting Enriched Carbon.
- Green Systems: These produce Nitrogen. Essential for Nitrogen Salt.
- Blue Systems: These give you Sulphurine. Used for Thermic Condensate.
If you’re a mid-game player trying to break into the high-tier crafting loops, having a row of these rooms while you’re managing your fleet expeditions can actually save you some planet-side grinding. It’s a supplement, not a replacement for a gas extraction base.
The Aesthetic Value
We have to be real: the room looks incredible.
The stellar extractor room features a massive, glowing vertical tube that looks like it’s actually piercing the hull of your ship to touch the stars. In terms of "vibe," it’s a 10/10. Many players, including myself at times, keep them around just for the industrial look. If you build a catwalk around them, you can create this amazing engine-room atmosphere that makes your freighter feel like a working vessel rather than just a series of empty corridors.
Sometimes, in No Man's Sky, the "rule of cool" trumps efficiency.
Practical Alternatives for Gas Gathering
If the extractor room is frustrating you, don't force it. There are better ways to get these gases.
The most efficient method is still the Gas Extractor (the industrial building) placed on a concentrated gas cloud on a planet. You can set up a small base with a teleporter, a few solar panels, and a bunch of supply depots. One visit every 24 hours will give you thousands of units—way more than the stellar extractor room could produce in a week.
Another pro tip? Use the Refiner.
You can actually "cycle" gases using a Medium or Large Refiner. For example, if you have Sulphurine but need Radon, you can mix Sulphurine with Condensed Carbon to get Radon. It’s a bit of a chemistry mini-game, but it’s 100% reliable and doesn't suffer from the disappearing-inventory bug.
Is the Stellar Extractor Room Worth It?
Not really. Not for the resources.
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Build it if you want your freighter to look like a high-tech laboratory. Build it if you enjoy the immersion of harvesting the stars. But do not rely on it for your crafting empire. It's too slow, too prone to glitches, and the yields are too small to justify the freighter real estate if you're playing for maximum efficiency.
That said, No Man's Sky is a game about your personal journey. If you find peace in checking your extractors after a long session of exploring derelict freighters, then it's doing its job. Just don't be surprised if you come back and find the tanks empty. Space is a cold, thieving mistress.
Actionable Next Steps
To get the most out of your freighter's resource potential without losing your mind, follow this workflow:
- Check your persistence: Build one room and put 10 units of anything in it. Warp your freighter to a new system. If the item is gone, your save is currently affected by the persistence bug. Stick to manual gas farming on planets.
- Cluster for efficiency: If you do use them, build a dedicated "Extraction Deck" with at least 8 rooms. This makes the payout feel substantial enough to be worth the walk from the bridge.
- Sync with Frigate Missions: Only harvest your extractor rooms when you return to your freighter to debrief your Frigate commanders. This keeps you in the same instance long enough for the rooms to actually generate a decent stack of resources.
- Ignore Yellow Systems: Never use the extractor for Chromatic Metal. It's a waste of a room slot. Always prioritize Red, Green, or Blue systems to get the gases that are harder to find at trade terminals.
Focus on building a reliable planetary gas farm first. Use the freighter rooms as a "bonus" decoration that occasionally gives you a free gift, and you'll enjoy the game a lot more than if you're counting every unit of Nitrogen.