The Portable Miner is your first introduction to automation in Satisfactory. It’s very basic, holding a maximum of 100 raw minerals. It can’t be connected to conveyor belts or other machines either. In this guide, we’ll show you how to unlock, craft and place Portable Miners.
At the time of writing this guide, Satisfactory was in its early access. For that reason, there may be a few things different in this guide compared to your own game depending on future updates. If you’re interested, we’ve covered many more Satisfactory Guides here at PwrDown!
Unlocking the Portable Miner
You can unlock the Portable Miner in Satisfactory by upgrading the Hub to level 1. By doing so, you will unlock the Equipment Workshop, Portable Miner and some much-needed inventory slots.
The total cost of upgrading the Hub at this point is 10 Iron Rods. Iron Rods can be created by crafting them from 10 Iron Ingots in the crafting station. Once ready, use the Hub Terminal to upgrade to the next tier.
Crafting the Portable Miner
Unlike other recipes in Satisfactory, the Portable Miner isn’t crafted in the Crafting Station, nor is it a structure. Instead, you have to craft it from the Equipment Workshop, which you unlock alongside the Portable Miner.
Build the Equipment Workshop, and place it down in your base. Interacting with it will give you access to the Portable Miner and Xeno-Zapper recipes. Portable Miners are relatively cheap, only costing 1 Iron Rods and 8 Iron Plates.
Placing Portable Miners
Now that we’ve unlocked and crafted Portable Miners, all we have to do is place them. To do so, open up your inventory by pressing TAB. From there, select the Portable Miner in your inventory, and drag it into the hand slot.
Your character will be holding the miner, and you can place it by using the left mouse button. You can only place it on mineral deposits such as Iron, Copper or Limestone. Once placed, you should make sure to re-equip your Xeno-Zapper as it’s a useful combat weapon.
