Early on in Death Stranding, once you unlock the ability to fabricate items and structures in Chapter 2, you’ll find yourself in dire need of materials to build and upgrade as much as you can. If you want to construct roads with an auto paver, you’re really going to need a lot of materials.
Cities, distribution centers, and other locations can promptly run out of materials if you’re fabricating frequently. Fortunately, there are ways to gather materials efficiently to lessen the amount of time you spend wandering through the wilderness when the stocks are low.
The Different Types Of Materials
In Death Stranding, there are six different kinds of materials in your journey. Each has a specific function, and while some are more common than others, most can be gathered in similar ways.
The six materials you need to manage are: Metals, Resins, Ceramics, Chemicals, Special Alloys, and Chiral Crystals. With the exception of Chiral Crystals, each of the materials can be gathered in similar ways. Picking up lost material in the wild is the easiest method, but it’s also inefficient if you’re looking to gather lots of materials at once. Here are a few more effective ways to gather materials.
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Take On Material Orders For Deliveries
While Orders for Sam are the most important tasks you’ll be undertaking, you can quickly fill up a location’s material stock by accepting Material Orders in the Standard Orders tab at terminals. You’ll be asked to deliver materials to another location, and once you do, those materials are immediately available for use. Meaning you can pick up a Material Order, drive it to its destination, and then promptly take back everything you just delivered from the stock in order to upgrade a structure. It kind of feels like cheating, but it’s undoubtedly effective.
Steal Everything From MULE Camps
MULE Camps are filled with materials. Furthermore, there’s often a MULE truck nearby that provides both a handy escape route and transportation method for the large quantity of materials you’ll soon be stealing. Stock up on weapons, engage in some stealth, or simply run everyone over with a vehicle, and you’ll be able to have your pick of materials from the camp in no time. Don’t forget to check the postboxes too. There’s usually something inside worth taking.
Killing BT’s For Chiral Crystals
Chiral Crystals are a unique material in Death Stranding, used for a great deal of fabrication. In Chapter 2, you’ll learn how to harvest the gold pockets of Chiral Crystals which dot the landscape. And while farming the material this way is effective, it is by no means the quickest.
If you want a obtain lot of Chiral Crystals in short order, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty. You’re going to have to hunt BTs. This isn’t possible until late in Chapter 2, but once you get access to Hemetic Grenades and the ability to construct them, you can start hunting them down.
There are two different types of BTs to hunt. The first are the humanoid ghost-like figures that BB alerts you to when they’re nearby. Killing them drops a small pocket of Chiral Crystal, but it’s chump change compared to what you can actually get from the more difficult enemies. You’re going to want to let the ghost BTs grab you and drag through the black muck until you are confronted by the squid-like BTs.
These are minibosses, and they take a lot of punishment before going down. They can also kill you swiftly if you’re not focused. Be quick about it if you don’t want to die and respawn far away. Spamming Hemetic Grenades is a slow but effective method of bringing them down. Later in the game, blood weapons will make the process easier. The reward for killing this BT is several hundred Chiral Crystals at minimum, making them a risky but rewarding proposition for those in need.
