ARC Raiders Damage Vaporizers Trial Guide

The ARC Raiders Damage Vaporizers Trial guide exists because someone at Embark looked at a flying laser drone with a Matriarch-level energy shield and thought, "yes, players should be scored on how much they poke this." And here we are. The Vaporizer was introduced in the Flashpoint update on March 31, 2026, and it immediately became the most consistent method of turning well-geared Raiders into ash. The good news: when you know what you are doing, the Damage Vaporizers trial is one of the friendliest score farms in the game. The better news: you can stack it with two other trials simultaneously and walk out with close to 70,000 points in a single match.

The core idea is this. Vaporizers are not meant to be soloed in a mad dash. They are meant to be bled out patiently from hard cover, with short peek windows, aiming at a very specific critical hit spot on their belly. If you rush them, you die. If you hide indefinitely, you waste time. The entire trial strategy lives in the gap between those two failure states.

The split above is real-world output from a single match without Wolf Packs. With Wolf Packs and tighter ammo discipline, the ceiling is considerably higher. If you want to maximize score ARC Raiders Oldtown trials, this is the map and this is the match condition to do it in.

The ARC Raiders Triple Dip Trial strategy works because Vaporizers are ARC enemies, Wasps also spawn in Oldtown during Close Scrutiny, and all three score pools tick simultaneously. You do not need to manage separate objectives. Shoot Vaporizers. Points appear in all three columns. It is almost elegant, if anything about this game could be called that.

Before diving into the ARC Raiders Oldtown Arc enemies damage guide, you need to understand what you are dealing with. The Vaporizer is a medium-sized aerial ARC unit that combines a Matriarch-level energy shield with precision laser fire. It is faster than the Rocketeer, smarter about when to activate its shield, and specifically designed to punish anyone who peeks at the wrong moment. The shield goes up when you throw grenades at it. The developers are not subtle about their feelings toward you.

Attack Patterns

Critical Hit Spots

Understanding the ARC Raiders Vaporizer core critical hit spots is what separates a frustrating 8,000-point run from a 28,000-point one. There are two spots worth your time and ammunition. First, the small rotors on the Vaporizer's corners, two per corner, eight total. Destroy these and the machine loses altitude, which matters for sustained fights but is less relevant for the trial where you are farming damage, not kills. Second, and far more important for this specific context: the belly core. It is a yellow canister located directly beneath the chassis. When your shot connects with it, you will hear a distinct critical hit sound and deal approximately 300 damage per hit versus the rough 100 you get from hitting armor plating. This is the difference between efficient trial progress and burning through your Jupiter rounds achieving nothing.

Critical Point

The belly core is exposed and hittable from below and from angled windows even before the armor is fully stripped. You do not need to destroy the rotors first to get critical hits in the trial context. You need an angle on the underside. Two windows on opposite sides of a room give you that angle with minimal exposure time.

The best loadout ARC Raiders Vaporizer trials leans heavily on energy weapons and explosive burst damage. This is not a situation where your general-purpose Venator will carry you. The Vaporizer is heavily armored everywhere except the belly core, and without armor-penetrating tools, you will spend more ammo than points you earn.

The ARC Raiders Jupiter weapon strategy trials comes down to two rules: pre-charge while the Vaporizer is occupied attacking, and alternate windows so you are never in the same spot twice in a row. The laser beam attack has a fixed duration. When it stops, that is your window. Peek, shoot the core, pull back. Reload while the laser goes somewhere else. The Vaporizer has no real counter to this pattern as long as you have two viable windows in the building.

Ammo Note

Loot every dead Vaporizer immediately for energy ammo. They are the most reliable source on the map during Close Scrutiny. Missing this step is how you end up at 29 rounds with six minutes left and a mild existential crisis.

Here is the full loop for the ARC Raiders Triple Dip Trial strategy executed in Oldtown. Follow this and the points accumulate without you needing to perform any particular feats of skill or bravery. Just patience, cover, and a reasonable understanding of which window to shoot from.

Spawn and go straight to Oldtown

All three trials tick inside Oldtown's boundaries. Do not start farming Vaporizers outside and then drag them in. Go there first, find a strong building with two windows on different walls, and make it your operational base. Oldtown buildings are dense enough that you can almost always find one with the geometry you need.

Aggro a Surveyor to lock it in place

The key to understanding how to spawn Assessors ARC Raiders style is that Surveyors, the large rolling spherical ARC units, call in Assessors and spawn Vaporizers in waves. You do not need to kill the Surveyor. You need to aggro it so it enters alert mode and stops roaming. Shoot it once, then let it be. An alerted Surveyor stays in the area and continues spawning Assessors, which spawn Vaporizers, which means your trial never runs dry of targets.

Cycle between two windows on the same Vaporizer

This is the entire mechanical core of the run. Peek window A, pre-charge Jupiter, fire at the belly core when the laser attack ends, pull back. Move to window B, repeat. The Vaporizer's laser blast always lasts the same amount of time. That consistent timing is your opening. Work both windows so the machine is never fully tracking you and never has a clean angle on your position.

Do not kill every Vaporizer immediately

Trial progress is damage-based, not kill-based. A Vaporizer you leave at 20% health and then return to later still gives you damage points. Cycling between two or three damaged Vaporizers generates more sustained score than killing one and waiting for the next spawn. Be greedy about damage, not about kills.

Use zip lines to bait distant Vaporizers into Oldtown

If Vaporizers are spawning outside Oldtown boundaries, deploy zip lines and shoot them once to aggro them toward you. Lead them into the zone before engaging properly. Points only tick when you are inside Oldtown. A Vaporizer you damaged at the map edge is wasted effort.

Manage Rocketeers and secondary threats

Rocketeers will occasionally appear, and inside a building their rockets have enough splash to ruin your entire afternoon from one careless shot. When a Rocketeer identifies your position, deal with it before resuming Vaporizer damage. The Photoelectric Cloak is here for this exact scenario. Wasps spawn throughout and contribute to the third trial score simultaneously, so never ignore them entirely.

Loot energy ammo constantly, heal aggressively

Energy ammo is your most finite resource and the one that ends runs prematurely. Loot dead Vaporizers immediately. Use any Arc Power Cells found. The match ends when you extract or die, and dying at six minutes left with a broken Jupiter and no heals is a very specific kind of disappointment that is entirely avoidable.

The ARC Raiders Oldtown Arc enemies damage guide does not begin and end with Vaporizers. Oldtown during Close Scrutiny is a carousel of things trying to kill you, and understanding the hierarchy of threats determines how long you last and how many points you accumulate.

Vaporizers spawn in clusters of up to three per Assessor. They patrol the areas surrounding each landing site and will follow you into buildings if aggroed. Wasps and Hornets also spawn in Oldtown and contribute to the ARC Raiders Damage Wasps Trial tips score simultaneously. Do not ignore them, but do not chase them at the expense of Vaporizer time. The Wasp score this strategy generates is essentially passive. You will kill Wasps while repositioning between Vaporizer engagements without specifically hunting them.

Assessor Spawning Mechanic

Assessors spawn more Vaporizers when breached by other players. If there are other Raiders in the lobby actively looting Assessors, your Vaporizer supply effectively becomes infinite. Other players doing their thing is good for your trial score. Appreciate them silently and do not shoot them.

Threat Priority Table

The ARC Raiders friendly lobbies and player interaction dynamic in Close Scrutiny is genuinely one of the more interesting social puzzles the game produces. Other Raiders are in Oldtown for the same reason you are. They want Vaporizer damage and Assessor loot. Most of them are not there to shoot you. They are there to farm.

This creates an informal truce that holds most of the time. Players will orbit the same Assessors, share aggro on the same Vaporizers, and occasionally hand you their last bandage because they are somehow good people in a game about extraction shooting. Respect this. The enemy density generated by multiple players actively breaching Assessors produces more Vaporizers than any single squad could manage alone. Other players doing their job is your best supply chain.

When It Goes Wrong

Someone will shoot you. It will happen at the worst possible moment, such as when you are at half health with a broken weapon and three Vaporizers circling your building. Pop the Photoelectric Cloak, heal up, and either avoid them or handle them when your situation is stable. Do not engage while also managing Vaporizer aggro. Pick one problem at a time.

The tactical calculation here: a living friendly player farming nearby is worth more to your trial score than a dead enemy who leaves the lobby and reduces Vaporizer spawns. This is not a philosophy. It is math. More people in the area means more ARC aggro, more Assessor breaches, more Vaporizers in the air, more score for everyone including you. Violence is optional. Damage trials are not.