From upgrading their K-Drive board and MOA companions to building kit guns, to feeding their Helminth, there are plenty of reasons for Warframe players to hunt for thermal sludge. First introduced in update 24, the Fortuna update, this resource can be hard to find at first. It only appears on one map. Thankfully, it's easy for players to find it once they know where and how to look.

Like fish oil on The Plains of Eidolon, players can only find thermal sludge in Venus' snow-covered free-roam area, Orb Vallis. Unlike fish oil, players don't need to do a special fishing mini-game to find it. Players can spearfish on Orb Vallis, but the only thing they'll catch are robotic servofish, which won't help here. Obtaining thermal sludge is a much more straightforward task, similar to finding common resources in the smaller mission maps.

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How to Get Thermal Sludge in Warframe

In Warframe's lore, thermal sludge is a byproduct of the Corpus using the Orokin's terraforming towers. This is an important clue on where to look. The corpus stores thermal sludge in white conveniently labeled "thermal sludge canisters" around their outposts. Most named sections on Orb Vallis' map will have these canisters lying around, such as The Pearl, Temple Fabrication, and The Spaceport.

Fishing Pond Warframe

To speed up the hunt, players should choose a stealth build to avoid unnecessary combat, and equip the mod Thief's Wit to highlight the containers on the mini-map. Once these areas have been picked clean, players can return to Fortuna and immediately head out to Orb Vallis again to re-spawn them.

Searching for these canisters is a good way to spend time while waiting for a glass fissure, mining for gems, or completing Vox Solaris' Heists.

Players can also earn thermal sludge as a reward for bounties. This method is much slower compared to directly hunting. The thermal sludge is only one item in a pool of possible rewards, after all. But it's a nice side bonus for players who are hunting bounties for other reasons, such as leveling up equipment or earning Garuda's component parts.

There are plenty of blueprints that require thermal sludge, but the most important ones are for two Warframes: the speedster Gauss and the shield-draining Hildryn. Gauss' systems require 85 thermal sludge and Hildryn's chassis requires 90 thermal sludge. Players aiming to complete their collection will eventually have to make this resource a priority, but they won't have to spend too much time farming for it.

Warframe is available for the PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

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