If you've been playing ARC Raiders for a bit, you already know the pain: you're finally ready to craft something useful, and boom - no Steel Springs. Again.
It's one of those resources that doesn't seem rare at first, but once you start upgrading gear, building components, and actually trying to progress, you burn through stacks way faster than expected.
So instead of constantly scraping by, here's a farming route that actually works - something you can run solo and walk out with a solid amount of springs almost every match.
A Hidden Bottleneck
In the early game, you might not care much about springs. But suddenly, you need springs to craft mod components, you need springs to craft advanced mechanical parts, you craft non-stop, but your Steel Spring inventory is empty. At this point, you only have two choices: either endure it or cleverly farm springs.
Farming Route
Currently, one of the most reliable locations is Primary Facility in the center of Dam Battlegrounds. It's not exactly hidden, but surprisingly, it's rarely looted.
The advantage of this location is its high resource density. There are plenty of containers like drawers, chests, and toolboxes to scavenge, so the chances of finding ARC Raiders Steel Springs or items that can be recycled into them are very high. And once you're familiar with the layout, it's easy to reuse them.
Even if your spawn point is far away, it's worth going. If your spawn point is nearby, it's practically free.
Go Solo
You might think bringing a squad is safer - it's not. While this seems counterintuitive in a game with PvP elements, grouping often creates more noise and attracts more attention. Solo players can move more quietly, control the pace, and avoid unnecessary combat.
This route itself is relatively safe, with occasional encounters with other players only in the early stages. While you might occasionally encounter players who enjoy PvP, you can still handle them if you stay alert.
What You're ACTUALLY Looking For
The key to successfully completing this route lies in understanding what you're truly looking for. Springs themselves aren't always readily available. Instead, most of your rewards will come from items that can be recycled into springs.
Cooling Coils, Rusted Tools, Spring Cushions, and even Ruined Accordions will frequently appear in this area, and over time you'll quickly become able to recognize them at a glance. Once you've mastered these items, your efficiency will increase significantly without needing to change your route.
However, one item deserves special attention: Turbo Pump. If you retrieve it after the extraction, you'll get mechanical parts and oil. But if you handle it during the game, it will directly give you a Steel Spring.
Yeah, completely different outcome. If you forget and extract it, you've basically wasted it. As far as current knowledge goes, this kind of behavior is quite rare, which makes the turbo pump especially important to remember.
How to Loot Properly
This is where most players lose value. If you just run through grabbing obvious stuff, you'll miss half the loot. You should start in the main loot room and treat it as the core of this operation. This area alone provides a large amount of the materials you need. From there, explore outwards, check the side rooms, climb to higher floors, and gradually progress along the building structure, which naturally forms a circular route.
This route is less about speed and more about completeness. Every drawer, every container, even open surfaces like shelves or carts may hide useful items, especially rusty tools that often appear outside containers.
What About Enemies?
As you delve deeper into the facility, ARC Enemies will slow you down from time to time. They aren't too difficult to deal with, but if you're unprepared, they might block your access to certain rooms.
Carrying minimal equipment is sufficient to handle them, especially while you're familiarizing yourself with the route. Entering completely unarmed is also possible, but unless you're very familiar with the layout, doing so will only create unnecessary trouble.
Encounters with other players are quite different. The early game is usually relatively peaceful, but the risks increase as you move into more competitive areas. This unpredictability stems not only from the presence of other players but also from their behavior.
Some will completely avoid you, some will attack immediately, and some will feign friendliness before betraying you. Therefore, be cautious about trusting others. Or simply don't trust anyone at all.
Expected Returns
The value of this route lies in its stability; even a typical raid can yield a considerable amount of Steel Springs, and you can usually find some advanced mechanical components along the way. While there can be some fluctuations, overall, it remains one of the most reliable ways to maintain a spring supply.
Furthermore, even though this route is widely known, it remains effective because most players don't loot thoroughly, and not everyone knows which items can be converted into springs. Not to mention some people completely ignore so-called junk items. And that's the key to victory; knowledge is often more important than speed.
That's how to efficiently farm Steel Springs in ARC Raiders. A reliable route is more important than luck. Once you get used to it, you'll stop worrying about springs altogether - and that's when the game actually starts to feel good.
