Unknown Signals
Unknown Signals are mysterious cargo drops on parachutes that appear periodically in Survival Mode near players. This feature can be disabled in the World Settings.
They are distinguished from “known” (named) Signals and Unidentified Signals.
Gallery
An evasive cargo drop with a sensor (2025)
A cargo drop with a Modular Cargo Container (2025)
A cargo drop with solar panels (2025)
A cargo drop on the Earthlike Planet (2025)
A cargo drop in space (2025)
A cargo drop on a lake (2022).
Usage
It’s your choice if you want to hunt them down: There are no consequences for ignoring them and no risks in looting them. A few of them have "surprises", but none of them is dangerous to players. When you urgently need repair components, they can be a lifesaver.
Countdown
Unknown Signals have a despawn timer that appears as e.g. a "T - 15 minutes" signal on the HUD. The indicator does NOT mean that it’s "a 15-minute's walk away", NOR that you will get loot "after 15 mins". It means that you are given 15 minutes to reach it and loot it, and the self-destruct timer is counting down.
Why am I hearing explosions?
If you ever hear a random explosion but see no impact, it was likely an Unknown Signal despawning. When the countdown reaches zero, the cargo drop self-destructs with an audible explosion. The self destruct does not damage players nor voxel terrain nor other grids than itself.
The self-destruct is tied to the cargo drop's grid! The explosion will also happen if you hack or claim the grid or take it with you, for example, if you take the cargo drop's battery whole to discharge it. These things won't happen if you already pressed the button.
Tip: The only way to disrupt the self destruct is to merge the captured blocks to a small-grid that is owned by yourself and that is made up of more blocks (!) than the cargo drop.
Appearance
The standard cargo drop is a small, roundish, unpropelled craft built out of small-grid Light Armor blocks.
When encountered on planetary surfaces, the parachute will deploy and the cargo drop will slowly float down. When encountered in space or on moons, the canvas has not been used and can be looted.
It will always at least be built of the following parts:
- At least 1 Button Panel, possibly also dummy button panels
- Parachute Hatch supplied with Canvas
- Small Cargo Container or Medium Cargo Container
- Small Battery
- Antenna
Loot (Spoilers)
If you get to the cargo drop before the countdown ends, you gain some random loot from Steam Marketplace.
- Press the button for a lucky chance to win a Steam market tradable armor skin for your suit or tools.
- There can be several buttons, active and inactive, and sometimes buttons also break if the drop crashlands too hard.
- Each player can only get three random skins per day, afterwards it will say you found nothing.
- Open the cargo container to get some random components, Engineer Plushie, Saberoid Plushie, space credits, or tools. No Prototech to be found here.
- Finally, grind down the whole thing to salvage its components.
Cargo drops keep spawning randomly during longer (Steam) play sessions, but Steam Marketplace loot drops are limited. If the lucky button repeatedly responds "You found nothing", try again 24 real-life hours later.
Known Issues
Since 2025, duplicate Steam Marketplace items stack in your Steam Inventory, and extra copies are no longer shown in a dialog in-game like before. To players, this looks like the button did not do anything, but the duplicate item is still silently added to your Steam Inventory. You should recycle duplicates on the Character Screen.
Gameplay Considerations
On a multiplayer server, an Unknown Signal can be used as an implicit indicator of another player's presence, because we know they spawn near players. In a Space Suit Only Survival start, Unknown signals are a valuable source of components, tools, space credits, and blocks.
There are strong unknown signals and standard unknown signals:
Standard Unknown Signals
Standard unknown signals appear in singleplayer and multiplayer games. These cargo drops always appear within 1.5 to 4.5 kilometres of a player, basically in jetpacking distance.
Players are alerted to their own cargo drop with a green HUD signal if they have signals enabled on their HUD. From 80 metres away you can also hear a beeping sound when approaching.
Other players don't see your drop's green HUD signal, but can still steal your drop if they see the parachute, or come across it by chance — and possibly ambush you.
Strong Unknown Signals
Strong unknown signals are a bit larger and appear only in multiplayer games, and only in space. They typically spawn far away from you, requiring space flight to reach them, because they spawn within 20 to 90 kilometres of any player. All players who have signals enabled on their HUD are alerted to these cargo drops with a strong HUD signal.
Are they worth it?
You can always use cargo drops as a source of components or batteries, for example in early game, in emergencies, or in a Space Suit Only Survival playthrough.
If you are already capable of space flight, is it worth flying to a strong unknown signal? Depends:
- Cons: Their salvage value is low at that game stage.
- Pros: Their main advantage is that their lucky button gives you rarer suit/tool skins. Mainly, they are a nice opportunity to meet the neighbours. ;-)
Trivia
Unknown Signals used to be called Cargo Drops. In the game files, the standard and strong unknown signals are called PersonalContainer and CompetitiveContainer, respectively.