AETHUS Where to Find Gold: Mining Locations and Automation

Gold spawns in the lower cavern levels near the underground waterfall, along the cliff paths leading toward drill site 5, and around the exterior corridors of Facility Epsilon. Mining these shimmering nodes supplies the raw ore needed for base circuitry.

Underground Gold Node Locations

Gold deposits appear once Maeve descends below the initial cavern floor. The earliest accessible veins sit directly beneath the stone bridge and along the flooded slopes near the subterranean waterfall. These raw ore deposits stand out against the dark rock walls due to their reflective metallic surfaces.

Following the cliff edge east of the central crater drill platform leads to drill site 5. Shipping records from George Broussard found in Facility Delta confirm that drill site 5 was established specifically to supply gold for expedition electronics. Multiple exposed gold nodes line the ledges along this route, continuing past the meeting platform near the cavern shortcut back to the outpost.

Deeper underground, gold appears frequently throughout the exterior sectors of Facility Epsilon. Traveling between Epsilon, the intake dam at Facility Kappa, and the outskirts of Facility Mu reveals clusters of nodes near glowing vegetation and along the rock paths beside warm mineral pools.

Methods for Gathering and Respawning Gold

Extracting raw gold by hand requires targeting nodes with Roland's mining laser. Unupgraded lasers take several sustained pulses to crack open high-tier ore formations. Investing in best upgrades such as Mining Laser Crystal upgrades significantly cuts extraction time down to one or two pulses per node, preserving Maeve's oxygen supply in low-air zones.

Underground ore nodes replenish through seismic activity. Spending extended periods working in the caverns naturally triggers an earthquake whenever Maeve ascends back to the surface outpost. Each earthquake completely resets the resource nodes throughout the mine.

Players who require fast inventory resets without waiting for passive tremors can construct the Quake Maker at the surface base. Inserting a specialized charge into the machine manually forces a tectonic shift that instantly repopulates all cavern minerals.

If harvested ore fragments float on the ground without entering the backpack despite available inventory capacity, check the Customization Station at the outpost. Verifying that gold ore is not checked as a filtered item restores normal pickup behavior.

Automating Gold Extraction at Drill Sites

Drill site 5 provides an automated solution for long-term gold production. Instead of hand-mining each vein, players can bring the drill site back online by interacting with the machinery housing.

Activating the excavator requires installing an appropriate drill bit alongside a Cargo Drone Mk 1. Once the drone is assigned to the rig, the machinery operates independently, pulling gold ore from the subterranean deposit and ferrying it straight to the surface base. The transported metal deposits directly into an outpost cargo bay or a storage silo without requiring manual collection runs.

Refining Gold Ore and Crafting Requirements

Raw gold ore cannot be processed inside a basic smelter. Converting gold ore into usable metal requires the Standard Smelter, an upgraded processing unit available for purchase at the trade terminal or discovered as an outpost blueprint along the cavern cliff path near drill site 4.

Processing gold ore inside the Standard Smelter produces gold bars. These bars form the foundation for critical technical components crafted at the electronics workbench:

• Crushing dust rubies inside the rock processor generates ruby dust.
• Combining gold bars with ruby dust at the electronics workbench crafts microcircuits.
• Assembling microcircuits with metal frames and power cells yields servo motors, which unlock security gates across Facility Beta and Epsilon.
• Microcircuits provide the core component required to fabricate the EMP charge for the Facility Delta borehole blast door.
• Late-game operations combine gold microcircuits with jaspite bars to manufacture advanced electronics for heavy outpost infrastructure.