Where to Find Every MW4 DMZ 3D Printer Ingredient

Every MW4 DMZ 3D Printer recipe needs ingredients, and the game only gives you a short hint for where to find each one. This guide puts all 27 ingredients in one place: the in-game Ingredient Locations hint, where we actually looted it, which DMZ level hands it to you, whether you can print it, and which recipes it goes into. We captured every hint and every container ourselves during the first days of DMZ early access in October 2026.

How Ingredient Locations Work in the 3D Printer

Select any recipe at the 3D Printer in your FOB and press INGREDIENT LOCATIONS. A panel opens with one page per ingredient in that recipe. Each page shows the ingredient, how many you hold against how many the recipe needs, and one line on where to look. The same ingredient always shows the same line, whichever recipe you open it from.

The hints are short. Some name exact rooms, like the Netshin Tech Complex server rooms. Others only name a container type, like “Found in computers and tech bags.” That is why we put the hints next to the containers and places where we actually picked each ingredient up.

Ingredient value follows rarity. Every Uncommon ingredient tooltip we saw read $200, every Rare one $500, the Epic Volatile Explosives $1,500 and the Legendary Experimental Compounds $3,500. Keep that in mind before you sell one to make room in your backpack.

Every MW4 DMZ Ingredient and Where to Find It

These cards hold all 27 ingredients. Filter by rarity or area, show only the ones you can print, or search a recipe name to see every ingredient it needs.

For the recipes themselves, with every cost and how each one unlocks, see our MW4 DMZ 3D Printer recipes guide.

Where to Farm Ingredients, Area by Area

Most Rare and Epic hints point at the same handful of places. If you need several ingredients at once, plan your run around one of these areas instead of chasing items one by one.

Chang-san Air Base

The air base is the best single stop. Its hangar and repair bay hold Structural Alloy and Alloyed Plating, and the armory and barracks hold High-Tenacity Fibers and Ballistic Fabric. We also looted Reactive Metals and Detonators there, and the Chang-san Air Base Bunker gave us a Printed Circuit Board on a shelf, a Binding Catalyst from a first aid kit and Electronic Sensors from an IT bag. The catch is the threat level. The air base showed CRITICAL on our runs and the bunker EXTREME, and Operation Iron Citadel sends you through the same buildings.

Mirae General Hospital and Medical Tents

Binding Catalyst and Stabilized Reagents both point to Mirae General Hospital and medical tents, and Biomaterials to hospitals and chemical lockers. We pulled a CPU out of a PC cache in a hospital office during Operation Critical Extraction, and Biomaterials turned up there too.

Haneul Nuclear Reactor and Electrical Substations

Printed Circuit Boards and Power Regulators both point to the Haneul Nuclear Reactor and electrical substations. You need Printed Circuit Boards for Night Vision Goggles, Power Regulators and Epic Ingredient Printing, so this is worth a dedicated trip once you start on upgrades.

NuriGO Mall, Citadel Prison Yard and Imjin Farmland

Nitro Compounds and Volatile Explosives share three spots: the NuriGO Mall DRC lab, the chemical buildings in the Citadel Prison Yard and the storage tents at Imjin Farmland. We found Nitro Compounds in a chemical storage container at NuriGO Mall during Operation Shopping Hacks, and Volatile Explosives in the hidden cache of the Dead Man’s Cache Dynamic Op on Oamsik Turtle Island. Rigid Synthetics turned up at NuriGO Mall and Imjin Farmland too.

Netshin Tech Complex, Cheonwang Peak Array and Deadtown

CPU and Comms Module point to the server rooms at the Netshin Tech Complex and the Cheonwang Peak Array, and to the hillside facade buildings in Deadtown. Deadtown’s underground holding area is also one of the three Nylon Cloth and Nylon Laminate spots, together with the Citadel main building wings and the Mujin Nightclub in the Heavenly Luck Casino.

Imjin Farmland Rice Mill, Hajin City Construction Zone and Namjjog Station

Stock Rod and Turned Components share these three spots. Stock Rod goes into the Bomb Glider, the Door Breacher Charge and Stash Weapon Upgrade I, and three of them print one Turned Components once you have Epic Ingredient Printing. We found Stock Rod in a tool chest and a tool box at the Rice Mill, which matches the hint, and Turned Components in an industrial locker in the North Korean Wilderness.

Everywhere Else

Six of the Uncommon ingredients have container hints instead of places. Control Unit and Electronic Sensors come from computers and tech bags, Rigid Synthetics from residential areas and civilian duffel bags, Reactive Metals from industrial areas and toolboxes, Detonators from military and industrial areas, and Biomaterials from hospitals and chemical lockers. Loot whatever container matches on your way to an objective and these fill up on their own.

Ingredients That Only Drop From Commanders

Four ingredients have no world location at all. Their hint names a Commander instead.

Ingredient	Dropped by	Used in
Military Composites	Colossus	Epic Ingredient Printing, Secure Scavenger Backpack, Tempered Armor Vest
Prototype RF Module	Death Stalker	Crossfire, Fulton Drop Marker, Large Secure Backpack, Vendor Item Upgrade I
Nano-Structured Alloy	Tank	3-Plate Helmet Armor Vest
Experimental Compounds	Commanders, occasionally	3-Plate Ballistic Gel Vest, Door Breacher Charge

The one Experimental Compounds we have found so far was Legendary, worth $3,500, and lay on the ground at Imjin Farmland. That makes Commanders the gate for the top armor and for Epic Ingredient Printing, which needs 5 Military Composites. Our Boss Board guide covers where we met Colossus, Death Stalker and the Tank and what each one pays.

Printing Your Own Ingredients

Two 3D Printer upgrades let you print ingredients from base resources. Both are on the UPGRADES tab and available from the start, if you can pay for them.

Upgrade	Cost	Unlocks
Uncommon Ingredient Printing	$50,000, 20 Biomaterials, 10 High-Tenacity Fibers, 5 Comms Module	Biomaterials, Control Unit, Detonators, Electronic Sensors, Reactive Metals, Rigid Synthetics
Epic Ingredient Printing	$100,000, 10 Binding Catalyst, 10 Printed Circuit Board, 5 Military Composites	Alloyed Plating, Ballistic Fabric, Comms Module, Nylon Laminate, Power Regulator, Stabilized Reagents, Turned Components, Volatile Explosives

Each Uncommon ingredient costs 20 of two base resources. Rigid Synthetics, for example, takes 20 Synthetics and 20 Metals. Each Epic ingredient costs 100 of one base resource plus 3 of a Rare ingredient, so Volatile Explosives take 100 Chemicals and 3 Nitro Compounds. In other words, Epic printing turns three Rare ingredients into one Epic one.

Note that Uncommon Ingredient Printing already asks for 5 Comms Modules, an Epic ingredient you can only print after the Epic upgrade. Your first 5 have to come from the server rooms at Netshin and Cheonwang or the Deadtown hillside buildings.

Ingredients You Get From DMZ Levels

Fourteen ingredients are also rewards on the DMZ level track. They are the easiest way to top up the Rare ones.

DMZ level	Ingredient	Rarity
6	Rigid Synthetics	Uncommon
11	Reactive Metals	Uncommon
29	Detonators	Uncommon
33	Electronic Sensors	Uncommon
38	Control Unit	Uncommon
39	Biomaterials	Uncommon
43	Structural Alloy	Rare
44	CPU	Rare
47	Nitro Compounds	Rare
49	Binding Catalyst	Rare
51	Stock Rod	Rare
53	High-Tenacity Fibers	Rare
56	Printed Circuit Board	Rare
57	Nylon Cloth	Rare

The full level track, with every other reward, is in our MW4 DMZ level rewards guide.

Base Resources and Regional Combat Notes

Metals, Synthetics, Chemicals and Electronics are base resources, not ingredients. They have no Ingredient Locations hint and they do not take a backpack slot. The backpack panel counts each one separately, up to a cap (MAX 50 per resource on the Small Backpack, 100 on the Medium Backpack). Most containers we opened gave some. We picked Synthetics out of jackets, luggage and medical bags, Chemicals out of chemical storage, luggage and first aid kits, Electronics out of medical bags, military lockers and duffel bags, and Metals out of computers, IT bags and medicine cabinets. Chemicals go into 39 recipes, Synthetics into 30, Metals into 29 and Electronics into 17, so loot them every time.

Regional Combat Notes are the one ingredient without a captured hint yet. They are Uncommon, and we have found them in a cash register in the South Korean Border Zone as well. You need 5 of them for MIA Recovery Discount I, which cuts the cost of recovering a Missing In Action operator by 5%. We have looted them from care packages, from a safe at Compound Bravo and from the reward crate of the Special Delivery Dynamic Op, and picked up two more during the Signal Breaker Dynamic Op in Deadtown.

Carrying Ingredients Home: Backpacks and Secure Slots

Looting is a big part of what makes DMZ fun, and it is also what makes an exfil tense. Plenty of squads we run into only play for kills. That works for a while, but every backpack, every armor vest and every FOB upgrade runs through ingredients, so in the long run the squads that loot get stronger.

Space runs out first. The Small Backpack fills up fast, so a bigger backpack is the first thing to print. The ones that matter for ingredients are the ones with secure slots. Anything in a secure slot stays with you even if you fail to exfil, so that is where a Commander drop or an Epic ingredient belongs the moment you pick it up.

Backpack	Secure slots	Extra	How it unlocks
Small Backpack	0	Limited space	From the start
Medium Backpack	1		From the start
Medium Weapon Backpack	1	Weapon slot	Recipe found in game
Medium Scavenger Backpack	2	More resource capacity	Recipe found in game
Large Backpack	2	Weapon slot	DMZ Orders
Small Secure Backpack	3		Recipe found in game
Large Scavenger Backpack	3	More resource capacity	Recipe found in game
Medium Secure Backpack	4		Recipe found in game
Large Secure Backpack	4	Weapon slot	Recipe found in game
Secure Scavenger Backpack	4	More resource capacity	Recipe found in game

Most of these recipes have to be found in the world before you can print them. We found the Large Secure Backpack recipe in a medicine cabinet at Wolves Stadium, and like any recipe you have to extract with it to unlock it. The Scavenger backpacks raise how many base resources you can carry, which matters once you start printing ingredients in bulk.

Back at the FOB, the next limit is your stash. Stash Item Upgrade I adds 18 item slots for $10,000, 10 Rigid Synthetics and 10 Electronic Sensors, both Uncommon ingredients from ordinary containers. If you hoard ingredients for bigger recipes, unlock that early so you do not have to sell them for space.

Which Ingredients to Farm First

Count how many recipes each ingredient feeds and three stand out. Rigid Synthetics go into 15 recipes, including most backpacks and both parachutes. Control Unit goes into 11, from Night Vision Goggles to the Railgun Sentry, and Reactive Metals into 10, mostly armor vests. All three are Uncommon and come from ordinary containers, so never leave them behind.

After that it depends on what you want to print. Armor needs Reactive Metals plus Structural Alloy or Ballistic Fabric from Chang-san Air Base. Backpacks need Rigid Synthetics plus Nylon Cloth or Nylon Laminate. Upgrades need CPU, Printed Circuit Boards and Electronic Sensors. Open the recipe you want, press Ingredient Locations, and use the cards above to plan one run that covers most of the list.

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