No Man's Sky Solanium | How to find or grow Solar Vines

A year after its introduction, even following the release of the Beyond update for No Man’s Sky, it’s still difficult to find the Solanium element in the game. We are going to show you how to find No Man’s Sky Solanium so you can retrieve this very rare element. This element, like other rare ones, has a ton of uses for recipes and the like. As such, upgrading your equipment and crafting new items will eventually require you to get Solanium, including upgrading your base.

Unfortunately, finding No Man’s Sky Solanium is easier said than done in the game. With such a huge galaxy full of literally trillions of planets, it can be hard to know where to look. Where do you look? Is there a way to tell which planets have it? Are there any ways to get Solanium other than mining? We’ll help you out with finding this very rare element. Let’s get started.

How to Find No Man’s Sky Solanium on planets

No Man’s Sky Solanium, like the name of it suggests, is related to solar in some way. The name is actually a hint not towards what its appearance looks like but actually where it is located. To begin finding Solanium, we will first need to go over what planets you are looking for that host the element. Specifically, the element can only be harvested on the back of the Solar Vine, which look like black vines with little suns running around red rocks. These vines can only be found on sun-blasted scorched terrain. It is possible to find Solanium mixed with other minerals on regular plants, but the spawn rate is incredibly low.

One nifty trick in the game is while you are in space you can look at a planet and scan it before even approaching it to see what elements it has including No Man’s Sky Solanium. The planets you will want to scan are hotter planets, which you can sometimes tell just from their appearance, but always by description or type. These are the planet types you’ll need to search for to find the scorched terrain needed for Solar Vines:

Arid
Boiling
Charred
Fiery
High Temperature
Hot
Incandescent
Scalding
Scorched
Torrid

Once you’ve found a planet with one of the labels, or a scan that says it has No Man’s Sky Solanium, you will want to land on it. If not, head to the next planet. The Solanium element is a purple icon element that notes its rareness, like Star Bulbs, and it’ll almost certainly be in the shape of a leaf, as you’re technically looking for a plant. As such, you will want to scan around and head towards any purple icons that you see.

This will lead you to find the super rare Solar Vines, the so-called “living rock”, where you can mine No Man’s Sky Solanium. You’ll need a Haz-Mat Gauntlet to pick it up, however, so make sure you’ve unlocked it from a technology merchant selling Exosuit upgrades beforehand. Good luck and happy gathering out there in the galaxy, traveler! Just watch out for radioactive planets, they’ll probably have it, but you probably don’t want to hang around these places for too long!

How to grow your own Solanium

If you don’t fancy trekking throughout the galaxy looking for scorched planets, and then searching or scanning those planets (which are pretty big) for a few plants, then you might want to try getting your own Solanium via Solar Vines you’ve planted yourself. The good news is that you can plant and farm Solar Vines on any type of biome. The bad news is that it can still take a while to get the Solanium.

You have to grow Solar Vines indoors, so have a room set up, along with hydroponic trays. The best room you can build to farm Solar Vines in particular is a biodome, the proper dedicated farming structure that offers sixteen slots to house plants. It is possible to grow Solar Vines outside, but you’ll need a hot planet with scorched terrain to grow it on, and finding that was the trouble in the first place.

Now you’re ready to plant a Solar Vine, you’ll need 100 Phosphorous and 25 Chromatic Metal to do so. Phosphorus can mostly be found on scorched planets (so you’ll have to visit one eventually), and Chromatic Metal has to be processed in a Refiner using Copper, Cadmium, Emeril and Indium. You may need the help of a Farmer to plant a Solar Vine, but you’ll definitely need a Haz-Mat Gauntlet to mine Solanium from it. If all goes well, the plant will yield 50 Solanium every 16 hours.

Can Solanium be synthesized?

Despite the wiki page’s description of Solanium as a “powerful chemical that has resisted attempts at synthesis,” it is actually possible to refine and create Solanium without farming or searching planets for years. You’ll need a Refiner and at least some of the following minerals: Phosphorous, Oxygen, Sulphurine, Di-hydrogen. Here’s the operations you can do to get 1 extra Solanium:

2x Phosphorous + 1x Oxygen + ‘Encourage Growth’ operation
1x Phosphorous + 1x Sulphurine + ‘Encourage Growth’ operation
1x Di-hydrogen + 1x Sulphurine + ‘Sulphur Injection’ operation
1x Solanium + 1x Phosphorous + ‘Organic Expansion’

Is there any other way to get Solanium?

The only other way to get Solanium, other than farming, refining, or hunting for it, is by heading to the various trading outposts in the galaxy. Check with traders that land in space stations, or trade depots, as both of these can be great ways to get hold of Solanium and other plant products. There’s a bit of chance involved, of course, but that’s why this element is so valuable: it’s meant to be hard to get!

More No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an epic science fiction adventure set across an infinite universe, in which every star is the light of a distant sun, orbited by planets filled with life – each yours to visit. Explore never before seen worlds and trade, fight and survive on a galactic scale.

EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN

Explore uncharted solar systems and catalogue unique new forms of life. Every planet’s landscape is different from the next and populated by species never before encountered.

SURVIVE ON A DANGEROUS FRONTIER

Every solar system, planet, ocean and cave is filled with danger, and you are vulnerable. Battle attack ships, fend off dangerous predators, and survive in hazardous environments. Every encounter will test your skills to the limit.

PREPARE FOR AN EPIC JOURNEY

How you play No Man’s Sky is up to you, but you shouldn’t take your voyage lightly. Collect precious resources on the surfaces of planets, trade them with alien races and build the equipment that will take you to your destiny in the stars.