Once Human: how to get Crude Oil

Originally posted on Video Games on SI | By Ryan Woodrow | Last updated Jul 25, 2024 9:25 AM ET

Once Human doesn’t take long to introduce you to modern technologies as you climb its tech tree, so it’s no surprise that you’ll need to be harvesting oil for plastics and fuels before long. Oil is not an easy thing to get your hands on though, and you’ll need to move a long way from wherever you made your starter base to harvest it.

We’ll explain where to get Crude Oil, and how to harvest it once you find it.

Crude Oil location in Once Human

Starry Studios

Unsurprisingly, you can only harvest oil from the oil fields. These are a location towards the north of the map, in the eastern section of Red Sands. The map above shows the most popular area players use to set up oil-farming bases.

Start by heading there and moving your base to sit in this location – try to give yourself as much space as possible, avoiding other bases and things like rivers or roads. If you don’t know how to do that, check out our guide on how to move your territory in Once Human.

How to harvest Crude Oil in Once Human

Starry Studios

Once you’ve set up your base in the oil field, you need to unlock the following technologies:

Water Pumps
Solar Generators
Fuel Refinery

Place your water pump on the ground in your base to make sure it pumps out Crude Oil. Set up your generators and hook everything up with a Circuit Module to make sure everything’s properly powered – you’ll need enough to power both the pumps and the Fuel Refineries, which you should place nearby to make the process run smoothly.

If you’ve set everything up correctly, then your pumps will start producing Barrelled Crude Oil, which you can put in the refinery to turn into Portable Mixed Fuel – a very useful item.

This article first appeared on Video Games on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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