Strong Acid is a helpful resource in Subnautica 2 that has a range of uses, but it’s not easy to get hold of, and as your need for it increases, you’ll want to have a steady supply. Strong Acid isn’t something you can just go and find, you’ll need to craft it out of some specific ingredients.
Below, we’ll reveal how to craft Strong Acid in Subnautica 2, as well as go into what you need to find to make it, what it does, and why you need it. First of all, you’ll need to hunt down some Necrolei Cysts – one of the key ingredients of Strong Acid.
Where to find Necrolei Cysts in Subnautica 2
Strong Acid isn’t like Mild Acid, which you can craft easily by harvesting the Acidic Raion creatures that are common throughout the ocean. Necrolei Cysts are considerably rarer. By the time you need Strong Acid, you may already have some Necrolei Cysts in your resources, but if not, there’s one location where you can get a guaranteed drop.
If you start at the Life Pod, head north for roughly 350 meters and dive to the Old Habitat. The good news is that you’ll go here during the main quest to obtain a black box, so you may already be familiar with the location. Or, do this task when you reach that particular task.
Once you arrive at the Old Habitat, head left past the large plants with pink tentacles and blue flowers on top of them. If you look closer, you’ll see each of these plants has a little orb in the middle that can be harvested. You’ll need your Survival Multitool to hack them off, but this is how you farm Necrolei Cysts.
Of course, Necrolei Cysts can be found elsewhere, but this is the location the game intends for you to find them first. It also makes life easier for you in other ways when it comes to crafting Strong Acid, but we’ll get to that soon. Remember not to attempt this task until you have the Survival Multitool, but you’re likely to have that by now anyway.
It takes two Necrolei Cysts to craft one Strong Acid, so make sure you farm as much as you need. Once you have it, we’re going to need to head to the Processor Facility to craft the Strong Acid. If you’ve not unlocked the Processor Facility yet, don’t worry, you’re in the right place to do just that already.
Unlocking the Processor Facility in Subnautica 2
You’ll need access to the Processor Facility to craft the Strong Acid from the Necrolei Cysts, and as you may have already guessed, you’re going to need to scan some stuff to unlock the blueprint.
As fortune would have it, there’s one you can scan in the Old Habitat, so head on in there, find the salvage and scan it to unlock the Processor Facility blueprint. Once you have this in hand, you can refine the acid from the recipe menu.
Isn’t the game helpful by putting these two things in close proximity? It’s almost as though they did it on purpose. Once you have the Processor Facility set up, make your Strong Acid out of two Necrolei Cysts and repeat the process as much as you need.
Remember, it takes a day or so for Necrolei Cysts to respawn, but they will. However, they aren’t the only way to craft Strong Acid in Sunnautica 2.
How to craft Strong Acid without Necrolei Cysts
Necrolei Cysts aren’t the only way you can craft Strong Acid; you can make the same substance out of gold and sulphur.
You can farm sulphur from Coral Crabs and crack open gold nodes to obtain that. You’ll need to have unlocked the Heat Tolerance Adaptation to farm gold, which is something you unlock much later in the game, but it’s still useful to know.
For now, stick to Necrolei Cysts when it comes to crafting Strong Acid, but later, as your resources become more plentiful, you’ll likely have gold and sulphur to spare. We found that this actually replaces farming Necrolei Cysts as the easiest method to obtain Strong Acid, but you’ll need to be very well established for that to be the case.
What is Strong Acid used for in Subnautica 2?
Strong Acid is a key ingredient in crafting Power Cells in Subnautica 2, which are used to power your vehicles, keep you moving, and keep you alive.
Without Strong Acid, you’ll struggle to craft enough Power Cells to sustain your underwater exploits, so this is why the material is so important and will need to be farmed/crafted often.
The last thing you want is to run out of Power Cells while one of Subnautica’s dangerous Leviathans is chasing you.
