The Firefall DNA Guide: Where to Get It and How to Use It

Updated: 11 October 2013 for Patch 0.7.1714
Note that DNA and seed crystite hybrids have now been removed as a crafting material, which makes this entire guide obsolete. We’ve removed it from our list of guides, and are leaving the post here here only for reference purposes.

For anything except the most basic crafted gear, you’ll need not only resources but DNA and other items collected from defeated enemies. Here we cover the DNA you’ll need to craft your gear, and how you use it once you have it.

Updated: 26 September 2013 for Patch 0.7.1710

Collecting DNA

By guest writer Bilky!

Crafting your own gear in Firefall can be very rewarding and allows for a precise degree of fine tuning for those power hungry number crunchers amongst us. The whole process requires a dedicated effort and the hunt for DNA is no exception to this rule. This microscopic resource has often been referred to as the bottle-neck of the crafting system and until we see them listed on the market, it will most likely continue to be the bane of many of New Eden’s budding crafters.

While simply ‘playing the game’ will net you an ample supply of various samples, there are still those elusive varieties that will force you off the beaten track and into the rich, surrounding farmland. In short: at some point you will have to grind. It is not a tedious process, nor a very arduous one, but it will be necessary for a short while if you ever wish to see that Jetpack IV’s manifestation into (virtual) reality.

Aranha DNA

Mostly used as ingredients for those damage-tweaking components, consider Aranha DNA as the ‘offensive’ DNA. No offense.

You already have more than enough, let’s move on… On a more serious note, this little bugger is found in abundance all over New Eden. They are the Zerglings of the Firefall universe and early on you will most likely find all you need from the various Aranha-related ARES missions scattered about.

However, if this is not enough to satisfy your hunger, or you have decided to take the path of the weapons crafter, then despair not! The simplest solution is thumping. Thumping here, thumping there, thumping each and every where. The best recourse is to focus your efforts on another goal, for example if you also need some Thresher DNA then thump around Thresher habitats and before too long you will be balls deep in Aranha goo.

It is also worth noting that the rarity of DNA drops scale with difficulty, so by thumping within the melding pockets you will yield a much greater concentration of greens and above, making the whole process even easier (this applies to all DNA). In summary, whether you are looking for a specific resource or other DNA samples, if you’ve got hungry eyes for Aranha DNA then thump, thump, thump away.

Gear Recommendation:
Tier 1 & 2: ARES Missions, Thumping (New Eden).
Tier 3 & 4: Thumping (Antarctica > Sargasso Sea > Diamond Head).

Chosen Technology

Do you even lift, bro? If not, then Chosen Technology seems to be great at generally ‘buffing’ your gear.

This decisive technology is almost as readily available as its Aranha counterpart given that a fair amount of missions involve some malevolent Chosen plotline. Whether it be a full scale invasion of Sunken Harbour, a meddling Chosen strike team or something as simple as blowing up Shanty Town (some might consider this an act of benevolence), you will frequently find yourself in the midst of thwarting some Chosen scheme or another.

Although there are several methods for initiating an encounter with these antagonists, the best way to go about achieving this is, quite simply, business as usual. Just run ARES missions and keep an ear out for the Chosen specific ones, prioritising those over the rest. Keep in mind that squad missions (as opposed to personal missions) will spawn a much greater quantity of the evil-doers, a fact you may be able to take advantage of if you’re running around solo-Rambo style. However, if your calf muscles are getting a bit sore from hopping all over New Eden, you can always drop a thumper near the melding wall. Just keep in mind that these guys are considered to be amongst the toughest thumper enemies in the game and those jet-powered mining drills aren’t cheap to replace!

Gear Recommendation:
Tier 1 & 2: ARES Missions, Chosen Strike Teams, Watch Tower Defence.
Tier 3 & 4: Thumping (New Eden melding wall), Melding Pocket Strike Teams.

Culex DNA

Still feeling a little groggy from that big night out? A dash of Culex DNA may be just what the doctor ordered to ‘slow’ and ‘debuff’ things down to a more manageable pace!

Whether they’re zapping you with lasers, shooting toxic spit balls, or just buzzing around your head in an irritating fashion, at some point you will have to overcome your rational fear of New Eden’s bees if you have hopes of ever crafting those high-tiered, support-oriented offensive modules. Early on the infrequent rate of their drops may sting a little, but much like the other variations of DNA, this will all change once you start to venture beyond the Arcfolders.

The favoured hunting ground of these winged beasts stretches out along the coastline and especially towards the Northern Shores, but they can be found almost anywhere you wish they weren’t. Since farming Culex directly from the nests is a rather exhausting endeavour, once you feel confident enough in your abilities you should consider making a beeline for the Arcfolders and jumping into the melding pockets. At this moment take stock of your Thresher & Hisser DNA samples and head to Sargasso Sea or Diamond Head respectively depending on which one is in low supply. Efficiency is essential to time management, so hitting two bees with one stone is preferable if you’d rather be spending your time at the bar with El Terremoto.

Gear Recommendation:
Tier 1 & 2: Northern Shores Culex nests.
Tier 3 & 4: Thumping (Sargasso Sea > Diamond Head).

Hisser DNA

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Staying alive! Staying alive… will be much easier with the ‘health’ bonuses from Hisser DNA.

At some point or another you will find yourself cursing the fact that Hisser DNA is used as the primary component in the plating of every battleframe, along with all health-based modules. With no reliable way to spawn these over-sized crabs en mass inside New Eden, you may be feeling a little frustrated at the sudden halt in your early gear progression. Fear not! This will be alleviated once you craft your first Arcfold Module and leap through the fiery gates of hell, A.K.A. the Diamond Head Arcfolder.

While it is true that Hisser nests can be found all over New Eden, the most effective way to remedy the immediate situation is to grab your favourite AoE battleframe and farm those nests in Diamond Head. A few (READ: a lot of) laps should be sufficient in netting you the required amount of strands to process a single Hisser component. Don’t scoff! That’s enough to build your first T2 plating, giving your frame the resilience it needs to move up to the next rung of Hisser farming: You guessed it, thumping!

Whatever stage your gear, Diamond Head is where it’s at when it comes to gathering Hisser DNA. You will need 400 units of Radine, Copper, Silicate & Xenografts each (along with the appropriate quest items) in order to get there. It is but a small price to pay for the bounty this melding pocket has to offer.

Gear Recommendation:
Tier 1 & 2: New Eden Hisser nests, Diamond Head Hisser nests.
Tier 3 & 4: Thumping (Diamond Head > Sargasso Sea).

Thresher DNA

The ‘speed’ enhancing abilities provided by this yellow DNA are enough to refute the age-old myth that red ones go faster.

Upon first contact, New Eden’s stunning landscapes may cause you to dawdle from place to place as you soak in all the beautiful scenery on offer. However, once the awe starts to wear off you will likely be more concerned with running from mission to mission as fast as thresherly possible. While upgrading your Servos may trend towards the lower half of your to do list, once you do finally get around to it your quality of life will noticeably improve (I’m talking to you, Dreadnaughts!).

Threshers are notoriously scarce, so much so that there aren’t really any dependable farming spots until you start unlocking the melding pockets. You may find them scattered about New Eden but their numbers just aren’t high enough to consider hunting them down individually a viable option. A band-aid solution can be found by dropping a thumper in the vicinity of Thump Dump, however for best results, charge into Sargasso Sea where you will encounter an endless supply. If picking them off one by one isn’t your style, I’m sure Oilspill will be more than happy to help out with a thumper or two.

If you can manage a low tiered squad thumper by yourself (or with a friend) then you will speed up the whole process greatly. It hasn’t been mentioned yet, but the Bastion frame didn’t earn his unofficial title as “King of the Thumper” by sitting around counting his DNA all day! Keeping one of these turret champions on standby might be the best decision you ever made and with all the farming you’ll be doing they pretty much level themselves.

Gear Recommendation:
Tier 1 & 2: Thumping (Thump Dump)
Tier 3 & 4: Thumping (Sargasso Sea)

Using DNA

Note that for the purposes of this guide we’ll call Chosen Technology pieces “DNA”, even though they’re technically not, because they’re collected, processed and used in the same way as animal DNA.

Like almost every other crafting material in Firefall, the DNA you collect must be processed before you can use it in your crafting. Processing the DNA gives you a Refined Component for that type of DNA – for instance, processing Aranha DNA gives you a Refined Aranha Component. There are multiple rarities of each type of DNA, and the rarity affects how much of that DNA you’ll need to create one Refined Component.

This table shows how many pieces of a given DNA level you need to create one Refined Component.

Note that in the upcoming patch these requirements will change to 25, 10, 5 and 1 DNA respectively.

Other DNA and Enemy Drops

In addition to the five types of DNA used for crafting battleframe gear, there are other similar enemy drops that are not currently in use. You can collect them, but they haven’t yet been given a purpose – they don’t even have refining processes in the printer yet. They come in all the various rarities, and include Arclight Salvage (from mission enemies around Sunken Harbor, such as Holmgang Pirates), Brontodon DNA, Claw DNA (from Terrorclaws and Rageclaws), Nautilus DNA, and Stolen Accord Technology (from Tanken and bandits). These items will likely have a use in future crafting recipes.

There are also Melded creature samples – Melded Glial Cell Smears, Melded Blood Samples and Melded Muscle Tissue – which drop from Melded Culexes and Melded Hissers instead of normal Culex and Hisser DNA. These Melded samples are used to create the Melding Anomaly Neutralizer used to summon Baneclaw – you can find out more at our Melding Anomaly Neutralizer crafting guide.

And finally, there are a few items that drop from enemies which don’t fit into any of the above categories – Melded Calcium Carbonate from Baneclaw, for instance. These items don’t currently have a use, and you don’t need to worry about them in the context of collecting DNA for crafting gear.

Making Gear Using DNA

Once you’ve processed your DNA samples into Refined Components, you can then use these components to create the different types of Crystite Hybrid Modules. These are crafted from the Build > Crafting Components > Crystite Hybrid Modules menu.

Each Crystite Hybrid Module requires a Refined Component, a quantity of one family of resources, and one or more Seed Crystite Hybrid (which is an automatic byproduct of refining raw resources).

There are several different levels of Crystite Hybrid Modules. Basic modules are used in Stage II gear, Improved modules are used in Stage III gear, and Advanced modules are used in Stage IV gear. Each module only requires one Refined Component, regardless of its level, but you’ll need to use extra Seed Crystite Hybrids for higher level items. The required quantity of resources increases as you make higher-level hybrids, too.

The different coloured hybrid modules are used for different purposes. For example, Aranha DNA makes Red Crystite Hybrid Modules, which are used in components with damage or damage amplification effects. However, not every component requires a crystite hybrid module – most pieces of gear only require one crystite hybrid module in total despite using several components.

The following cheatsheets are a handy guide to show you which modules require coloured crystite hybrid modules. Gear listed with a x2, such as Battleframe Plating, indicate that the piece of gear needs two crystite hybrid modules of the same type.

And thanks again to our guest writer Bilky of Thumping Eden for his Guide to Collecting DNA!