ARC Raiders Frigate Guide – How to Board, Clear, and Extract (Frozen Trail)

TL;DR

• The ARC Frigate is an endgame map condition in Frozen Trail — not a random spawn. You queue specifically for it on maps like Pendola Pass, Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, and others.
• Board it from the back using ARC platforms that ride up and down beneath the ship. Disrupt one and it carries you up to the hull.
• The Frigate has three main sections: Lower Wing, Middle Deck (Hydra Arena), and Upper Deck. Each section gets harder and more enemy-dense.
• Destroy Power Cores and Turbines throughout to shut down fire traps, wind hazards, and unlock the final cargo platform.
• The cargo platform carries 24 loot containers — the main source of Amplification Modules in the game right now.
• Bring a full squad, a Grappling Hook, Barricades, lots of ammo, and heals. This is not a casual run.

The ARC Frigate is the endgame challenge that Frozen Trail was building toward. It’s a massive boardable warship that hovers over select maps, filled with Hydras, fire rooms, jet-engine wind, and some of the best loot in the game. It’s also genuinely difficult — this thing will chew through unprepared squads and send them home with nothing.

This guide breaks down everything you need to know: how to find and board it, how to push through each deck, how to solve the Power Core puzzle, and how to extract with a full bag of Amplified Materials. Whether you’re running with a trio or coordinating with a larger lobby, this is the route.

You can also grab the game on the official ARC Raiders site, PlayStation Store, or Xbox.

What Is the ARC Frigate in ARC Raiders?

The Frigate is a high-end raid event introduced with the Frozen Trail update. It shows up as a map condition, not a random encounter — you have to queue for a raid that specifically has the ARC Frigate condition active. When it spawns, it locks into one position on the map and stays there for the rest of the raid.

Maps where the Frigate can appear include:

• Pendola Pass
• Dam Battlegrounds
• Spaceport
• The Blue Gate
• Buried City
• Riven Tides

You’ll know it’s active because the destination screen lists ARC Frigate under the map name, and once you’re in, the ship is hard to miss hanging over the map. Check our Pendola Pass map guide if you want to get familiar with one of the Frigate’s main locations.

Once you board it, the goal is to push through the ship deck by deck, destroy Power Cores, clear Hydras, unlock hazardous loot rooms, and eventually release the cargo platform and ride it to the ground. That cargo is why you’re here — it’s currently one of the only places to reliably farm Amplification Modules, which you need for Amplified weapon upgrades.

Best Loadout for the ARC Frigate Raid

Don’t go into the Frigate with leftovers. This is endgame content, and it will punish under-prepared squads hard. Here’s what to bring:

• Main Weapon: Bettina — heavy ammo, full-auto, works on both ARC and Raiders
• Secondary: Hullcracker or Jupiter — great for chewing through armored ARC
• Alternatives: Anvil or Renegade if you prefer a different feel. Check the Stiletto and Bantam guides too for secondary options.
• Traversal: Grappling Hook or Snap Hook — skip elevator puzzles, save yourself from falls
• Deployable: Barricades — create your own cover in the wide-open Hydra Arena
• Healing: Green or Blue Bandages — pack more than you think you’ll need
• Shield: Multiple Shield Rechargers — Hydras and Vaporizers will drain you constantly
• Squad Utility: Defibrillator — going down is expected; having a way back up is smart
• Optional: Photocloak — useful when a Vaporizer starts stalking you at the end

One thing worth hammering home: bring absurd amounts of ammo. Experienced players report running dry by the end of the raid even with 400+ rounds for their main weapon. The Frigate is a sustained firefight across multiple sections, not a quick skirmish.

How to Board the ARC Frigate

The entry point is always the back of the ship. Here’s how it works:

1. Head toward the Frigate once it spawns. Note that while you’re approaching, the Frigate’s main gun can target and shoot you. Move quickly, or use a Photocloak to slip past undetected.
2. At the back, you’ll see round ARC platforms moving up and down beneath the hull. These are your elevator — they don’t shoot, so don’t waste ammo on them.
3. Jump onto one of the low platforms and use Disrupt on its center. Once disrupted, it rises and carries you up to the hull.
4. Step off onto the Frigate and head straight into the large vent shafts to reach the Lower Wing.

If you fall off during the boarding phase or need to bail mid-run, you can always return to the back platforms and ride one back down. It’s a slow exit but a safe one. For more on traversal gear that makes this easier, see our Grappling Hook guide.

ARC Raiders Frigate Map

ARC Frigate Lower Wing – Breach Loot and the Elevator Puzzle

Once you’re inside, the vent shafts funnel you toward the Lower Wing. This section has the first real loot — round breach spheres scattered on the walls that you can pop open for Amplified parts. Hit every one you can find; these are what you came for.

At the end of the Lower Wing, you’ll find the elevator up to the Middle Deck:

• There are two buttons, one on each side of the elevator platform. Two Raiders need to press them simultaneously to raise it.
• Once one player rides it up, they can activate an upper button to bring the rest of the squad.
• If you brought a Grappling Hook or Snap Hook, you can skip this entirely and just hook up to the next level directly.

Before moving up, grab any loot spots near the elevator platform — there are containers here that a lot of players overlook on the way through.

ARC Frigate Middle Deck – The Hydra Arena

This is where things get real. The Middle Deck is an open circular section with a central Power Core surrounded by Hydra turrets. Here’s what to expect and how to handle it:

Dealing with Hydras on the Frigate Middle Deck

Up to four Hydras spawn here — usually two at a time, with two more following once the first pair goes down. They cover different angles of the arena, and standing out in the open against multiple Hydras is a fast way to eat through your heals. Use Barricades to create hard cover on your flanks and focus one Hydra at a time. Aim for the green weak points to deal real damage.

Rocketeers and Vaporizers join the party too, so it’s a chaotic spot. Prioritize the Hydras first — everything else is manageable once the turret fire stops.

Activating the Middle Deck Power Core

1. Once Hydras are cleared, look for three buttons around the arena — one directly ahead and one on each side.
2. Have your squad activate all three buttons. This causes the center of the arena floor to open, raising a large Power Core.
3. Shoot every green damageable section on the Power Core until it’s destroyed.
4. After destroying the core, shoot the yellow wall targets on the sides. These release wall sections that fold out into climbing platforms leading up to the Upper Deck.

Loot the compartments that drop out from the walls as you climb — each one can hold Amplified Materials. Don’t rush past them assuming the best stuff is saved for later.

ARC Frigate Upper Deck – Hazards, Loot Rooms, and the Final Push

The Upper Deck is the hardest part of the Frigate run and where most squads crack under resource pressure. Expect constant waves of Hydras, Rocketeers, Vaporizers, and other flying ARC the entire time you’re up here.

Clearing the Upper Deck

Your priority on the Upper Deck follows the same pattern as below — kill Hydras before touching mechanics. Trying to interact with buttons or breach containers while a Hydra is lighting you up will get someone killed. Clear the turrets first, then work the objective.

After clearing a Hydra on the side of the deck, head toward its position and you’ll find a long walkway where jet engine wind is actively blowing toward you. This does not knock you off the ship if you run directly into it — the counter-intuitive move is to charge forward, not brace or retreat.

Along the walls of this walkway, smaller Power Cores have three breachable sections each. Break them open to expose the green weak points, then destroy those to shut the turbine section down. These aren’t strictly required to extract, but destroying them unlocks the nearby loot cylinders holding ARC parts and Weapon Amplification materials — the whole reason you pushed this far.

Fire Rooms on the ARC Frigate

Two fire rooms sit on either side of the Upper Deck, one left and one right. They’re each full of loot containers, but walking into an active one means taking flame damage repeatedly. Here’s how to handle them:

• Each fire room has a small Power Core in the center. Shoot it out and the flames stop.
• Once both fire rooms are cleared, you can move freely between them without worrying about burning.
• There’s a timed window between flame pulses if you don’t want to kill the core — some players dash in, breach a container, dash out, and repeat. It works, but killing the core is cleaner.
• Each fire room holds around three loot containers with a chance to spawn legendary Frigate Inductor materials.

These rooms are also good cover positions when the flying ARC gets overwhelming. Once you clear the fire, they become safe pockets in the middle of a chaotic firefight.

For more on surviving challenging raid environments, our best tips and tricks guide has general survival knowledge worth reading before you jump in.

How to Extract from the ARC Frigate – Releasing the Cargo Platform

This is the part that confuses most first-timers. You can technically escape via the back platforms at any time, but that’s the emergency exit — it doesn’t give you the full cargo payout. Doing the proper extraction is what unlocks those 24 loot containers.

Here’s the full extraction sequence:

1. Locate the central platform on the Upper Deck. It’s a large rectangular platform in the middle section — you’ll recognize it.
2. Find the yellow buttons on the surrounding walls and shoot them. This opens doors into the ship’s interior.
3. Inside, you’ll find Hydras and doorways leading to Turbines. Each Turbine has green halos similar to Power Core weak points — destroy them to shut the Turbine down. Some Turbines chain into each other, so destroying one may open a path to the next.
4. Return to the central platform and look for red-highlighted doorways on the sides. Go down through them to find one final Power Core. Destroy it.
5. Back at the platform, interact with the four floor cylinders around its perimeter using your Raider tool — you’ll see an “Interact” prompt on each. Each interaction lowers the platform a step.
6. Once all four are activated, the platform detaches from the Frigate and descends to the map below. Get on it before it drops.

When the platform lands, a Vaporizer spawns immediately. Deal with it fast before it drains the rest of your resources. Once it’s down, loot all 24 containers spread across the two wide sides of the platform — 12 on each side. These hold ARC loot, Weapon Amplification materials, and occasional furniture blueprints for your Outpost. After that, head to the nearest normal extraction point and get out.

Don’t forget — if the cargo run goes sideways, alive-and-empty is still better than dead. Back-platform escape means you lose the cargo, but you keep your loadout. For more on safe extraction strategies, see our extraction guide and tips on preventing item loss on death.

ARC Frigate Loot – What You Can Get

The Frigate is the primary reason to farm Amplification Modules right now — these are the materials used to upgrade weapons to new tiers at the Research Workstation. They drop across the hull, in wing compartments, and in the fire rooms, with the richest concentration in the cargo platform at the end. See our full Amplified Weapons guide for how these modules feed into weapon progression.

Other notable items from the Frigate include:

• Amplification Modules (Mark I–V): The main draw. Mark V is the highest tier and appears in hull loot ports.
• Frigate Inductor: Legendary material listed as a requirement for Research Station Level 4. Found in fire rooms and breach containers.
• Frigate Diagnostic Node: Reported by early players — exact purpose still being worked out by the community.
• ARC Conductive Coupler and ARC Data Module: Confirmed drops from hull loot ports.
• Rare ARC Technology: General pool reward across the ship.
• Outpost furniture blueprints: Show up occasionally in the cargo containers.

Containers across the ship get emptied fast in populated lobbies. The wing compartments that drop out of the walls when you shoot the yellow targets are especially contested — if you can get to them first, do it. For a broader look at what’s worth farming, our complete loot table guide covers the full material pool.

ARC Frigate Enemies – What You’re Fighting

The Frigate has a specific enemy roster that doesn’t mess around:

• Hydra: The signature turret ARC of the Frigate. Very tanky, multiple spawn waves. Hit the green weak points. They only drop light ammo, so don’t linger on them once they’re down.
• Rocketeer: Flying ARC that deals heavy burst damage. Deal with these before doing mechanics.
• Vaporizer: High-threat flying ARC that stalks you through sections and spawns during the cargo extraction. Prioritize these when they appear.
• Smaller flying ARC: Wolf packs and assorted fliers throughout. Resource drain more than a serious threat, but they add up.

One rule that will save your run: don’t leave Hydras alive behind you. They’re a nuisance for anyone pushing through later, and in a lobby with friendly squads, leaving active Hydras is a good way to make enemies of the people you need to cooperate with. For context on ARC enemy behavior more broadly, our Skulker and Bully guides cover the non-Frigate ARC you’ll run into on the way there.

ARC Frigate Tips – What Actually Keeps You Alive

• Start with a full squad or coordinate with the lobby. Trios can clear the Frigate, but it’s painful. A cooperative lobby where squads split sections and share the work makes everything smoother and ensures more people walk out with loot.
• Kill Hydras before you touch any buttons or breach anything. Doing objectives under Hydra fire is how runs fall apart. Clear the threat, then work the mechanic.
• Loot while moving up, not just at the end. Every platform transition between decks has containers. Assuming all the good stuff is waiting at the cargo platform means you’re leaving Amplified Materials behind.
• Save ammo for the Upper Deck. The lower sections are relatively forgiving. The Upper Deck is a resource bleed that doesn’t stop. Don’t go in on empty mags.
• Use Barricades constantly. There is almost no natural cover on the open decks. Barricades are what keep you from eating Hydra and Rocketeer fire simultaneously with nowhere to hide.
• Run into the jet-engine wind, not away from it. Counter-intuitive but correct — running toward the wind blast keeps you on the ship. Backing away means you get pushed off.
• Keep backpack space for the cargo. The 24 cargo containers at extraction are the whole point. Don’t fill your bag with common drops on the way up and have no room for Amplification Modules at the end.
• The back platforms are always your emergency exit. If the run goes sideways, getting out alive with whatever you looted is better than dying for the cargo.

If you’re still building your raiding foundation, it’s worth reviewing the best skills to unlock early and checking the wipe system guide so you understand what carries over between sessions. Also make sure your Workshop is upgraded and your weapons are as strong as they can be before you try this.

The Tether Launcher and Yank Grenade can also be useful for repositioning enemies or pulling yourself out of bad situations during the raid.

ARC Frigate FAQ