ARC Raiders Wipe Guide

The ARC Raiders Expedition Project is the game's voluntary reset system. Unlike Rust or Escape From Tarkov, where developers delete your life on a schedule, Embark Studios built a prestige loop: every 60 days a departure window opens, you load your Raider onto a caravan, and they leave the Rust Belt forever. The game calls it heroic. Your empty stash disagrees.

The wipe is not mandatory. Sitting out is an option. So is pretending you are fine with never improving. Your call.

Cycle schedule: ~60-day prep phase → 7-day departure window. Miss the window, wait another 60 days. The next departure window opens April 29, 2026 (Expedition 3).

What Goes. What Stays.

Before you make peace with the reset, here is the complete damage report. Study it. Grieve. Move on.

If you reset with a stash worth 3 million Coins, you receive 5 bonus skill points on your new Raider. That is 600,000 coins per skill point. Math accordingly.

You spawn with basic weapons, a Light Shield, and a few Augments. The rest is air. The first instinct is to push a hot zone and prove something. That instinct is wrong. Short raids with specific shopping lists are what keeps progress moving in early ARC Raiders post-wipe recovery. Long heroic runs just feed other players your garbage-tier gear.

Follow this rebuild sequence in order. Deviating from it is a personal choice the guide will not protect you from.

1. Stockpile uncraftable materials: magnets, wires, springs, processors, sensors
2. Push Workshop benches to Level 2 before anything else
3. Chase core blueprints: Anvil, Ventor, key Augments
4. Level via loot loops: XP is a byproduct, not a goal
5. Invest skill points in Breaching and Looting Speed first

Warning: Your skill tree is gone. You loot slower. You move slower. You get fewer materials. Act like a fresh Level 1, because that is what you are.

Workshop Rebuild Priority

The workshop does not reset into oblivion: the stations still exist. They are just useless Level 1 shells. Every upgrade must be rebuilt from materials looted this cycle. One station per raid. Split goals mean slow progress and risky overstay.

Priority Order

1. Explosive Station: grenade crafting, early PvE takedowns
2. Gunsmith Path: weapon stability and core attachments
3. Medical Bench: shields and health items stop being a luxury
4. Crafting Bench (general): everything else flows from here

Upgrade Sprints

Rusted Gears are the bottleneck. They are painful, they are scarce, and the game knows it. Special bus container spawns and Scrapyard are the shortest paths. Do not build elaborate theories about where else they might be.

Skill Tree After Reset

The entire skill tree is gone. The best skill build after ARC Raiders wipe is not glamorous: it is economic. Every point spent on anything other than access and speed is a point that slows down the rebuild. Survivability skills can wait. Combat tree enhancements can wait. Looting cannot.

Invest First In

• Security Breach: early access to gun parts and locked containers
• Looting Instincts: faster container looting, faster XP, safer runs
• Survival Tree / In Round Crafting: extra loot and on-site crafting in the field
• Traveling Tinkerer: pairs with Survival for mobile efficiency

At Level 30 with 5 bonus Expedition skill points, you hit Level 36 equivalent access. That unlocks Security Lockers scattered across maps: high-value loot, low-competition zones. Stop fighting over hot drops. Open lockers like a professional thief.

Loot Routes That Actually Work

Running Stella Montis naked on day one of a ARC Raiders reset farming guide is a fast way to donate your starter weapons to a better-equipped player. Start with low-risk loops. Efficiency over excitement.

Early Wipe Loops (Low Risk)

• Seed Vault: chemicals, plastics, steady XP, grenade materials
• Lobby Metro (Buried City): oils, wires, magnets on every visit, consistent
• Blue Gate Village + Olive Grove: residential sweep, fruit baskets, safe extraction
• Dam Battlegrounds: Pale Apartments / Ruby Residence: blueprints, low PvP traffic

Mid-Wipe Escalation (Moderate Risk)

• Stella Montis Cafeteria (locked room): fruit baskets, reliable, bring bolt cutters
• Buried City Hospital / Library: medical kits, cloth, antiseptic, blueprints
• Dam Battlegrounds: Research and Admin: dense container spawn, strong during Cold Snap

Late Rebuild (Know What You Are Doing)

• Stella Montis Assembly Workshops: exclusive blueprint pool, full squad recommended
• Hurricane / Electromagnetic Storm events: condition-locked weapon blueprints
• Harvester fights: Jupiter, Equalizer blueprints, not farmable any other way

Blueprint Recovery

Every learned recipe is deleted on reset. The blueprint farming ARC Raiders loop has three tiers: safe map routes, Dynamic Events, and Weekly Trials. Trials are criminally underused: every scavengeable blueprint in the loot pool is available as a 3-star reward. Stop ignoring them.

Quest-Locked Blueprints: Do These First

• Trigger Nade: Sparks Fly quest
• Lure Grenade: Greasing Her Palms quest
• Burletta: Industrial Espionage quest
• Hullcracker + Launcher Ammo: The Major's Footlocker quest

Stella Montis Exclusive Blueprints

Some blueprints only drop on Stella Montis: they cannot be farmed on Dam, Buried City, Spaceport, or Blue Gate. If you need them, you go there. If you are not ready to go there, you wait until you are.

Pro tip: Hold duplicate rare blueprints in stash instead of selling them for 5,000 coins. The next wipe wipes the recipe again. A stashed copy saves a full farming cycle.

Dynamic Events like Cold Snap and Night Raid increase blueprint drop density significantly. They are dangerous for low-level Raiders. That is the trade. Decide accordingly 

The ARC Raiders Expedition rewards are the only real argument for voluntarily deleting your progress. Each reset stacks permanent account improvements that compound over cycles. This is the prestige loop. It is either appealing or it is not.

These buffs do not give direct combat advantages over players who did not reset. Embark Studios made that choice deliberately. It keeps the voluntary character reset ARC Raiders from becoming mandatory by social pressure: a rare act of restraint from a live-service developer.

Unlock at Level 20. Five stages. Each stage requires committing specific materials to the caravan at the project terminal. Once committed, the materials are gone. There is no refund window.

Once the 60-day build phase ends, a 7-day departure window opens. During that window, how to complete Expedition ARC Raiders comes down to one action: walk to the finished caravan and enlist. Miss the window, your individual progress is saved, but you wait another 60 days. The caravan does not wait for anyone who is not ready.

Core Rules: Commit These or Suffer

• Short raids, safe extracts. Early wipe deaths cost more than they give.
• One workshop upgrade goal per raid. Split goals = no progress.
• XP is a byproduct of looting. Treat it that way.
• Skill points go to Breaching and Looting Speed first. The combat tree can wait.
• Do quest blueprints before hunting random drops. Four free recipes with zero RNG.
• Hold duplicate rare blueprints. The next wipe is coming.
• Stella Montis is not an early-wipe destination. It is a mid-wipe destination at best.