At first glance, you wouldn’t know it, but the open-world survival game Once Human features a robust weapon crafting and customization system. Let’s be honest: You won’t survive the apocalypse using a mere baseball bat or machete.
Putting down otherworldly creatures will require something more sophisticated, like a fully automatic submachine or light machine gun. To get one of those you’ll need some gunpowder. And for Once Human’s gunpowder, you’ll need to acquire acid. It’s an endless cycle that will see you grinding resource nodes well into the end game.
To make your journey easier, here is how to acquire acid using various methods, including a passive farming solution that offers a hands-off approach after initial setup!
Where to get acid in the early game
You won’t be able to farm acid in bulk until the late game. By then, you’ll have unlocked various technologies that will allow you to sift acid from contaminated water, but more on that later.
Early on, the best way to acquire acid in the early game is by slaying enemies. Multiple enemy types in low-level zones drop acid, including:
- Gnawer
- Charred Maniac
- Light
You’re most likely to encounter a Gnawer or Charred Maniac, the former of which will always drop a handful of acid on death.
![A gnawer stands outside of a construction site.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/6ead116a62014efd4aab90b6e84894c6.jpg)
Alternatively, you will acquire junk items from crates, waste bins, and enemies you can bring back to the base. Once you unlock and construct a Disassembly Bench, stuff all your unwanted
items inside and let it crush everything down to usable materials. One such material is acid!
How to farm acid passively
![A human stands next to a motorcycle at a railroad crossing.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/1325819969591253899ddf2d3c0df80a.jpg)
Farming acid isn’t always a hands-on activity. Once Human lets you farm acid passively. To do that, you’ll have to find some polluted zones first.
A few zones throughout the game are marked as polluted, though they vary in level and accessibility. A few potential spots can be found near:
- Greywater Camp
- Lone Wolf Wastes
- Blackfell
You’ll typically need to be approximately level 20 before it’s wise to venture into a polluted zone. Most of the technology you require to farm polluted zones for acid requires tier four and five Memetics.
[Once-Human-Reverse-Osmosis-Purifiers.jpg]
To get started farming acid passively, you must unlock the following items:
- Water Pump
- Reverse Osmosis Purifiers
- Fermentation (Brewing) Barrels
First, place your Water Pump in polluted water, then power up the unit to ensure it can feed into the Reverse Osmosis Purifiers. As this process proceeds, impure acid is produced.
Unfortunately, impure acid isn’t good enough to craft gunpowder and ammunition. You must refine the impure acid using the fermentation (brewing) barrels and purified water.
Once all is said and done, you’ll have a semi-automatic process to farm acid in Once Human. It requires a bit of setup—crafting and grinding—but proves more than worthwhile as you push end-game content with enough ammunition to stave off the apocalypse!
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