Just like any great farming game, Lightyear Frontier players will eventually have to move away from their beautiful farm to harvest some goods from the world and improve their base even further. Those resources go from the ever-present wood, which can be found in abundance in every area of the game, to the elusive fractalite ore, a very late-game discovery.

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Few of those resources need to be farmed consistently through the game, but each of them will become essential to gain progress at some point or other. This isn’t a dedicated mining game, and most resources that can’t be farmed in the player’s base are best gathered as needed.

1 Wood

A Staple Of Farming Games

Acquiring wood is as simple as slashing trees with the Spike Saw, but not every tree will do. There are three kinds of wood in Lightyear Frontier: normal wood, softwood, and hardwood. This last one requires a Spike Saw upgrade to be harvested and is needed for a handful of buildings. Softwood doesn’t really do anything unique except create unique variations of some common objects like crates.

Normal wood is by far the most useful type of wood and can be found by cutting down green and yellow trees. Players should remember to use the secondary action button (right mouse on PC, left trigger on Xbox) to slash at the trees, which allows them to hit multiple targets and works faster on trees than on minerals and rocks.

2 Coal

Useful For Using The Furnace

Coal might just be the easiest resource to farm Lightyear Frontier after wood. It’s available in every region of the game, even if not always in great quantities. And while this resource might not seem very useful, it’s necessary to craft nearly every object created with the furnace.

As such, coal is used in the crafting of glass, metal bars (iron, steel, and fractalite), and even some objects like light bulbs. While coal certainly remains an important resource for almost the whole game, until the furnace is replaced by the advanced furnace, farming coal is not as important early on as getting enough wood and aluminum.

3 Aluminum Rods

The First Mineral Of The Game

Farming aluminum rods will probably take a good chunk out of a player’s initial playthrough of the game. This is the first material that is needed to build plenty of machinery, craftable items, and upgrades. Like many other metals, aluminum is also needed to create aluminum frames, electronics, and parts, which are all used in many recipes.

Thankfully, aluminum rod deposits can be found in good quantities in different parts of the world. One group of deposits is located in Pine Heights, one of the two regions that the player can unlock right at the start of the game.

4 Copper Ore

Essential Even In The Late Game

Copper is likely to be the second mineral found by the player. But unlike the first, aluminum, copper ore isn’t found in the game’s starting region. Still, even if this mineral is absent from The Meadows, the neighboring Edge Cliffs hold a decent amount of copper, and the area is easy enough to clear.

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The Edge Cliffs, just like any other region, will become available to the player as soon as they are liberated of their infesting weeds and purple slime. Doing this in Edge Cliffs is quite easy since it doesn’t require any power-up.

5 Red Crystals

The First Crystal Available In The Game

Red crystals are the first crystals to become available in the game, and they are quite easy to farm in the early game, too. They are also one of the most important materials for early-game mech upgrades. For one, red crystals are necessary to upgrade the Irrigation Hose power, which allows players to clear Stepstone Peak.

Red crystals are also important because that’s where red crystal dust and red lenses come from. Those materials are needed to craft upgrades such as the second Power Hose improvement, the range upgrade on the Irrigation Hose, and the same upgrade on the Vacuum Harvester.

6 Zappertwigs

A Crop Essential For Progression

Zappertwigs aren’t like the other crops in the game. They are similar in how they have to be harvested for seeds first and then slowly farmed back home. Unlike almost every other plant, except plant fiber, its use isn’t just to be turned into oil. Zappertwig itself is an essential part of many craftable items.

Zappertwigs are found in the Yellow Forest region but can only be harvested from there once the area has been cleaned of its weeds and purple ooze. To do so, players will only need the first Vacuum Harvester power-up. This means that, while Zappertwigs aren’t an early-game resource, they aren’t a late-game unlock either.

7 Blue Crystals

The Second Unlocked Crystal

Blue crystals are found in the Yellow Forest, the same region that hides the Zappertwig crop. Freeing this region from its infesting weeds and ooze is quite easy, as it only requires one Vacuum Harvester upgrade. Harvesting blue crystals might be a bit harder since they require an upgraded Spike Saw.

Blue crystals are required for building blue glass, which itself is necessary to craft blue lenses. Blue crystals and blue lenses are necessary to craft mech upgrades like the Hydro Splash, which allows the player to irrigate a larger area in one hit, as well as a Vacuum Harvester power upgrade and the second Water Tank capacity upgrade.

8 Yellow Crystals

The Hardest Crystal To Obtain

Yellow Crystals are likely to be the last type of crystal found by the player in Lightyear Frontier. This is in part because they are found in a late-game area, and because harvesting them requires the highest Spike Saw power upgrade available in the Early Access version of the game.

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The Yellow Crystals are found in Mountainside Coast, which is unlocked fairly late in the game. Freeing this area requires the second Irrigation Hose power upgrade. Easier said than done, since the upgrade in question requires the somewhat rare Iron Parts.

9 Iron Ore

An Essential Ore For Progression

Iron ore is unlocked a fair bit before most crystals, but it remains a far more important resource for far longer. And unlike most crystals and minerals, and even some crops, one never seems to have enough iron in the crates to satisfy the need for late-game crafting recipes.

Iron is found in many parts of the world, so it’s a good idea to gather as much as possible whenever possible. Other materials, like aluminum rods and red crystals, can be reliably farmed in some specific areas, but that isn’t the case for iron ore, as its deposits are scattered all over.

10 Fractalite Ore

The Hardest Ore To Harvest

Fractalite is the latest mineral unlockable in Lightyear Frontier, at least in the current Early Access version. As such, it’s only found in the very last regions unlocked, Lowland Plains and the elusive Tornado Rock Isle. Of course, the Spike Saw needs to be upgraded to the highest power level available, level 3.

Fractalite ore is only used for a couple of non-essential mech upgrades, the Spike Saw damage boost, which reduces how much time the player has to spend to break down minerals, and an inventory upgrade. But fractalite is also used to craft important late-game items such as springs and the Homestead Mansion.

Lightyear Frontier

Platform(s)

PC , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

March 19, 2024

Developer(s)

Frame Break , Amplifier Studios

Genre(s)

Open-World , Adventure , Farming