Icarus guide: How to farm Exotics in Deep Vein Extraction

In our Icarus currency guide, I mentioned how completing missions nets you rewards if you check your in-game mail. But, that’s solely for the gold “R” currency. We still need to talk about another type of reward that you can obtain. Here’s our Icarus guide to help you farm Exotics, the purple currency for the Orbital Workshop, during the Deep Vein Extraction mission.

Note: For more information, check out our Icarus guides and features hub.

Icarus Exotics guide: How to farm the Orbital Workshop purple currency in the Deep Vein Extraction mission

A few tidbits regarding the mission and the Extractor blueprint

To gain access to the Deep Vein Extraction mission in Icarus, you’ll need to complete a prerequisite: Searchlight Scan. Also, before you actually commence Deep Vein Extraction, make sure that you’ve got the latest patch.

To clarify, I had already obtained the Extractor blueprint in the Tier 4 panel of the crafting tech tree. Based on the tooltip, it’s supposed to be a device that you can use to mine Exotics. However, I couldn’t craft it via the Fabricator. Worse, when I reached the objective, there was nothing in the vicinity.

Then, after downloading the hotfix and restarting the mission, I noticed the following:

• The Extractor’s tooltip simply said “requires talent,” but it doesn’t tell you which talent is needed. I couldn’t actually find anything related to that.
• The area where the objective takes place now has a cave (which I’ll discuss in a while).

Finding your first Exotic node in the Deep Vein Extraction mission in Icarus

In any case, start the Deep Vein Extraction mission when you’re ready. This takes place in the Southern Glacier, so make sure you’re familiar with the area. You can take a look at our guides regarding Arctic Biome Survival, Icestorm Expedition, and Searchlight Scan if you need a quick refresher.

From the dropship, make your way southeast until you reach the frozen ravine. You can build a small base here (i.e., armors, weapons, and the like). What’s important is that you have a stone pickaxe, a wood bow/arrows, a few wooden walls, and maybe some anti-poison paste, too. That’s it.

Next, go northeast through the ravine and glacier until you reach the objective marker (O13/P13). There’s a cave here and, naturally, it’s filled with cave worms.

Note: It’s possible that you’ll only see the mountainside, but you can destroy the wall with your pickaxe to reveal the cave opening.

Use wooden walls to block their poisonous projectiles and snipe them when you can. You can also use this cave as a makeshift shelter in case there’s a snowstorm (though, if you’re fast, you won’t be stranded in the middle of one). Likewise, you can chill for a while (pun intended) if it’s nighttime, given that it’s harder to see in the dark even if you’re out in the open.

After killing the cave worms, you can mine your first Exotic node in Icarus. Smash the entire thing with your stone pickaxe and you’ll see a couple of new objectives:

• Deliver the Exotics to the dropship storage.
• Optional: Search the area for additional Exotic deposits.

Note: It’s possible to see two Exotic deposits spawn in this cave, but it’s entirely dependent on RNG. Thanks to ROV|Pcans0 for mentioning this. Likewise, another tip is that you can use an Exotic Pickaxe from the Workshop (MXC Pickaxe or anything that increases your mining yields), as it’s possible to receive double the ores per strike.

Additional Exotic deposit locations in Icarus

There’s a huge glowing circle that denotes the search area. So far, I’ve only found two Exotic deposits. You can see them (and the maps icons) in the images below:

• At the bottom of a crevasse (southeastern part of O13).
• Down a pit where you could find some Oxite (northeastern part of O14).
• Next to a small hill (northern edge of O14). Thanks to ROV|Pcans0 in the comments section for mentioning this.

Note: I’m not sure if there are other Exotic node locations in the Deep Vein Extraction mission in Icarus. If you discover more, do let me know.

Deliver your Exotics to the dropship

After I mined these, I headed back to the dropship. Remember, you need to place the Exotics in the dropship cargo slots before you leave or they’ll be gone for good. Anyway, you can rerun this mission over and over to receive 150 gold currency and some Exotic currency for the Orbital Workshop. Each run should take you around 30 minutes and, if you’re mining the three aforementioned nodes, you should have dozens of Exotics each time.

Note 1: If the objective bugs out and shows up as incomplete, exit the dropship menu and re-add the Exotic ores. The commander should talk to you saying that you’re done here.

Note 2: There are Survival – Resources talents called Exotic Power and Exotic Sprinter which affect carry weight and movement speed respectively (not yields). Meanwhile, another talent called Metal Miner does affect yields, but only for metal deposits (the tooltip might be bugged since it only shows iron).

Exotic/purple currency in the Orbital Workshop

Speaking of the Orbital Workshop, don’t forget to take a look at that to see your Exotic currency total. Unlike the gold currency, you don’t need to check the in-game mail to receive it. It’ll automatically get added depending on how much you place in the dropship’s inventory before leaving the planet.

Note: You’ll receive Exotics in Icarus even if you complete the mission in offline mode. Sadly, the gold currency remains bugged for offline players. Since Orbital Workshop recipes tend to require gold, you still won’t be able to unlock any of them until the devs are able to fix this issue.

Icarus is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.