Starfield: What do the diamond icons on resources mean?

When you’re traversing a planet or looking at one of the many menus in Starfield, you may see a strange icon appear. This icon can come in a few different varieties, but the similar trait in all of the icons is colored diamonds.

These diamonds will usually appear next to an item, such as a mineral, resource, etc. There are different tiers of the diamond icons, which are represented by how many of them there are and their color. As an example, you will see three yellow diamonds arranged in a triangle next to the items such as Polymer and Ytterbium while something like Iridium only has a single blue diamond next to its name.

If you’re like me, then you immediately wondered what these diamond icons mean and how you need to use them in Starfield.

What do the diamond icons on resources mean in Starfield?

In short, the diamond icons next to an item’s name or icon in Starfield indicate how rare they are. The fewer diamonds an item has next to it, the more common it is, and vice versa. In terms of gameplay, when you scan a planet and view the resources it has available, you can see how rare they are to find by looking at their diamond icons.

If you see a resource that has three yellow diamonds next to its name, it will be somewhere on the planet for you to acquire, but it won’t be easy to locate.

The rarity of each item is also defined by the wording that each item’s description uses. If you see an item has a single blue diamond next to it, as Iridium does, then you can look at its description and it will say it’s an “uncommon resource.” But items like Polymer with three diamonds next to its name will be an “exotic resource.”

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In the grand scheme, the wording doesn’t matter too much, as you can simply look at the diamond icon to see how rare an item is. To make your life easier, here’s a breakdown of every diamond icon I have seen in Starfield:

• No Diamond: Common Resource
• One Blue Diamond: Uncommon Resource
• Two Purple Diamonds: Rare Resource
• Three Yellow Diamonds: Exotic Resource
• Four Green Diamonds: Unique Resource

I have yet to see a resource that has five diamonds next to it, but perhaps there are some items in the very late stages of Starfield that are considered rarer than Unique.