Crashed Drop Pod Hard Drive and Loose Parts

Crashed drop pods on the map have hard drives inside them which can be researched.

Hard Drive

The crashed drop pods provide a hard drive that can be researched in the MAM. It takes 10 minutes for the hard drive to be researched and once it has been done you will be prompted with a choice of three alternate recipes.

There are 89 Crash Sites in total. There are 4 Drop-pods that currently cannot be unlocked hence you can only collect 85 Hard Drives. There are 72 alternate recipes and 2 pocket expansions. You need at most 74 hard drives and will have 11 spare hard drives remaining if you collect them all.

  • The recipe choices are randomly selected based on the tiers you have unlocked and the milestones in the hub. For example if you have not unlocked tier 5/6 then you won't get any recipes from that tier.
  • The hard drives from locations are in no way tied to a specific set of recipes.
  • However, there are some recipes unlocked that you are unable to craft because you don't have machines for them. When you unlock coal power in tier 3 this also unlocks all of the Pure Ore refinery recipes, but you cannot use these until tier 5/6.
  • When you have exhausted all of the available recipes at that tier level the MAM will hand you back the hard drive.
  • When exploring and you find a hard drive, build a MAM on the spot and start research. Deconstruct the MAM and then 10 minutes later build it again and you will be presented with the recipe choices. This allows you to speed up the research process while collecting hard drives.

A strategy I often employ is as follows:

  • Unlock all the milestones in the hub for tier 1 & 2.
  • BEFORE sending the space elevator to unlock tier 3 & 4, keep researching hard drives until the MAM hands you back the hard drive.
  • Send the space elevator to unlock tier 3 & 4.
  • Unlock all the milestones in the hub for tier 3 & 4.
  • BEFORE sending the space elevator to unlock tier 5 & 6, keep researching hard drives until the MAM hands you back the hard drive.
  • Send the space elevator to unlock tier 5 & 6.
  • Unlock all the milestones in the hub for tier 5 & 6.
  • BEFORE sending the space elevator to unlock tier 7 & 8, keep researching hard drives until the MAM hands you back the hard drive.
  • Send the space elevator to unlock tier 7 & 8.
  • Unlock all the milestones in the hub for tier 7.
  • Keep researching hard drives until the MAM hands you back the hard drive.

The reason for this strategy is that the pool of available recipes are limited to only the tier level you are on. I often hear people tell me “It takes so long to unlock Turbofuel and Compact Coal”. The reason why is that they have rushed through the game and unlocked all the tier levels and found very little hard drives. This means that the pool of available recipes the MAM has to choose from is very large, so it's a long waiting game of unlocking all the recipes. By slowing down your game-play, you can avoid this obvious waiting and replace it with exploring the map which also provides you with power slugs at the same time.

 

Loose Parts

The crashed drop pod locations have parts around them littered on the ground, these parts can be extremely useful and save you needing to make parts in the early game and late game. The parts available at each location are always the same.

  • Reinforced Iron Plates are plentiful.
  • Computers and Heavy Modular Frames allow you to unlock trains and start building trains without having to manually craft either of these items, this can be a real bonus in getting oil back to base sooner.

One special location on the Map is “Lizard Doggo World” on the west coast. It's a cave  just north of a crashed drop pod on the beach and there are 5 piles of rubble with loose parts scattered around them.

 

Satisfactory Calculator Interactive Map (SCIM)

The SCIM Website  shows you the location of all the hard drives on the map allows you to load your save file to see which ones have already been collected as well as what the requirements are. The Hard Drives page has a “Loaded needed” list so you know exactly what you need to take with you to unlock the hard drives on the map, and updates as you reload your save file.

SCIM also shows you what loose parts are on the ground, use the cable icon down the bottom to display the loose parts. This can be very beneficial for targeting specific items and help you plan out an exploitative adventure.

 


 

This video shows one of the crash sites and how to retrieve the hard drive. Afterward research the recipe choice is given.

 

Explaining Alternate Recipes and how they can only be used in a machine, they do not appear in the craft bench.

 

An explanation of the Pure recipes that get unlocked via Hard Drive MAM research.