Subnautica 2 Mangalloy & Metal Farms: Full Crafting Chain
How to craft Mangalloy Ingots and build Metal Farms in Subnautica 2, the exact recipe chain, and why each farm costs a one-of-five Axum Bacterial Culture.
Metal Farms are Subnautica 2’s answer to the late-game metal grind — a structure that gives you a renewable source of refined metal instead of strip-mining the map. But building one is gated behind two scarce inputs: a Mangalloy Ingot and a one-of-five Axum Bacterial Culture. This guide lays out the full crafting chain so you know exactly what to gather before you commit a culture you can never get back.
The Metal Farm recipe at a glance
Each Metal Farm costs:
| Component | Quantity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mangalloy Ingot | 1 | Crafted (see chain below) |
| Axum Bacterial Culture | 1 | Only five exist in the world, no respawns |
Because Axum is capped at five per save, you can build at most five Metal Farms for the entire run. Every farm is a permanent decision — plan placement before you spend the culture.
The Mangalloy Ingot crafting chain
Mangalloy is not a raw ore. It is a refined ingot that pulls together three separate materials:
Mangalloy Ingot
├── Titanium Ingot (refined from Titanium)
├── Atacamite
└── Troilite
Laid out as a shopping list per ingot:
| Material | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Titanium Ingot | Refined from Titanium — abundant early-game scrap and ore |
| Atacamite | Mid-game deposit material; see our resources guide for routes |
| Troilite | Late-game resource — note that Hotfix 2 (May 22) added more Troilite areas in the late-game region |
Gather one of each, refine the Titanium into a Titanium Ingot, then craft the Mangalloy Ingot. With the ingot in hand, all that stands between you and a Metal Farm is the Axum run.
The Axum half of the equation
The Mangalloy side is pure crafting — predictable and repeatable. The Axum side is the dangerous half: the cultures grow only in the Karakorum Metal Farms cavern in the Root Canyon region, around 400 metres down, guarded by a Collector Leviathan. There is also a live bug where manual harvesting can clip a culture through the floor and delete it for good.
Do not gather a single Axum until you have read the Axum Bacterial Culture guide — specifically the part about harvesting with the Sonic Resonator instead of by hand. A Mangalloy Ingot is cheap to remake; a lost Axum is a Metal Farm gone forever.
Build order that wastes nothing
- Unlock and equip the Depth Module on your Tadpole.
- Stockpile Mangalloy Ingots topside first — they are renewable, so make them while it is safe.
- Plan where each Metal Farm will live; you only get five.
- Make the Axum run with a Sonic Resonator, hugging 400–450 m to dodge the Collector Leviathan.
- Build each Metal Farm immediately after a successful harvest so a culture is never sitting at risk in inventory.
Why bother with Metal Farms at all
Metal Farms convert a one-time setup cost into a standing supply of refined metal, which is what frees you from re-mining the same biomes every time you expand a base or build a new vehicle. Five farms, placed well, can underwrite an entire late-game economy. The scarcity of Axum is the whole point: the game is asking you to earn a renewable supply by surviving the most hostile cave on the map.
For the wider material map, cross-check the resources guide, the interactive map and the biome database.
Early Access note: the Mangalloy and Metal Farm recipes are current as of the May 22 Hotfix 2 build, which also expanded Troilite availability. Re-check our Patch Notes tracker after each update in case recipe costs change.