Navezgane doesn’t hand you anything. Every tool, weapon, and structure you build in 7 Days to Die traces back to resources you had to find, mine, or scavenge yourself. Here’s what’s actually worth prioritizing, broken down by tier.

The Three Resource Tiers

Resources fall into three tiers, and knowing the difference changes how you plan a run:

• Basic — abundant, easy to find, no crafting required to obtain.
• Intermediate — needs more effort: crafting, mining, or riskier locations.
• Component — the hardest to get, used for endgame gear like vehicles and advanced structures.

Chasing Component resources before you’ve secured a steady Basic and Intermediate supply is a common early mistake — you’ll burn time in dangerous areas for materials you can’t even use yet.

Basic Resources

Your early game runs on these:

• Scrap — extremely common. Breaking glass (windows, bottles) or looting containers turns it up constantly.
• Iron and Coal Ore — mined from surface deposits and underground veins. See our Burnt Forest biome guide for biome-specific deposit locations. Underground veins tend to attract more zombie attention, so go in prepared.
• Wood — from chopping trees. Unglamorous, but you’ll always need it for basic tools and structures.

Ovens, sinks, and trash cans are worth checking in every building — they reliably hold Basic-tier materials. Clearing out small buildings and abandoned vehicles systematically will keep you stocked without much risk.

Intermediate Resources

Once you’re past the opening days, these become the bottleneck:

• Metal — from destroying metal objects: vehicle frames, air conditioners, metal ladders. Sedans and air conditioners tend to be the best sources.
• Stone — mined directly from most ground surfaces, or produced by smelting Small Stones in a Forge.
• Potassium Nitrate — mined from stalactites and stalagmites underground. Required for explosives, so worth prioritizing if you’re planning to craft any.

Component Resources: The Endgame Grind

Component resources gate your access to high-end gear — think the Gyrocopter or advanced base structures. Brass is a key one here, usually obtained by salvaging brass-based items or looting containers; certain Forge recipes combine it with Clay Soil.

Forged Iron, smelted from scrap iron and iron ore in a Forge, is another core component — don’t confuse this with the raw iron ore you’re mining early on; it’s a separate, higher-tier material you have to process. Radiator fixtures are also worth searching thoroughly, since they often hide Component-tier materials that aren’t obvious from the outside.

Getting Component resources reliably means pushing into more dangerous parts of the map — there’s no way around that trade-off.

Optimizing Your Farming Route

• Target high-concentration areas for whatever resource you’re short on, rather than looting randomly.
• Prioritize abandoned buildings and vehicles — they consistently punch above their weight for loot density.
• Build a regular route around specific biomes or resource types instead of wandering.
• Adapt as you go. New locations and new threats will change what’s worth prioritizing — don’t lock in a route and ignore better options you find along the way.

Bottom Line

Resource tiers exist for a reason: chase Basic and Intermediate materials first, and only push into Component-tier territory once you can actually afford the risk. A consistent farming route beats random scavenging every time.