ARC Raiders Outpost Guide – How to Unlock It, Research Station, and Furniture Designs

TL;DR

• The Outpost is the headline progression system added in the ARC Raiders Frozen Trail 2.0 update — it does not unlock automatically.
• You need to reach Level 18 and complete the three-stage Sheltered Retreat Project to unlock it.
• Stage 1 requires photographing a farmland house at Ruined Homestead on Blue Gate — you must bring an actual Camera.
• Stage 2 needs 3 Planks, 5 Sheet Metal, 10 ARC Alloy, and 3 Advanced Electrical Components.
• Stage 3 tasks you with protecting the construction site by dealing damage to ARC enemies on Pendola Pass.
• Completing Sheltered Retreat unlocks the Outpost and its Research Workstation — the gateway to Amplified Weapons.
• The Outpost also supports Modules for expansion and 100 collectible Furniture Designs.
• Amplified Weapons require the Research Workstation upgraded to Level 4, alongside a Level 4 Gunsmith.

What Is the ARC Raiders Outpost?

If you’ve jumped into ARC Raiders after the Frozen Trail 2.0 update dropped, you’ve probably noticed a whole new tab in the main menu you didn’t have before. That’s the Outpost — and it’s probably the single most impactful progression addition the game has seen since launch.

The Outpost is your personal base above ground. It’s not just cosmetic housing (though it has that too). It’s the home of the new Research Workstation, which opens up a second route to unlocking gear beyond random Blueprint drops, and it’s also the prerequisite gate for accessing the Amplified Weapons system — the new fifth weapon quality tier that can fundamentally change how your favourite guns behave. If you’re not working toward this, you’re leaving endgame progression on the table.

The catch is that you don’t just get it for installing the update. You have to earn it.

How to Unlock the ARC Raiders Outpost — Sheltered Retreat Project Overview

Once you hit Level 18, the Sheltered Retreat Project becomes available in the Outpost tab of the main menu. It’s a three-stage project and you need to complete all of them before the Outpost opens up. Here’s the full breakdown at a glance:

• Stage 1 — Research Topside Living Conditions: Photograph a farmland house near Ruined Homestead on Blue Gate. Reward: Camera Blueprint.
• Stage 2 — Gather Building Materials: Deliver 3 Planks, 5 Sheet Metal, 10 ARC Alloy, and 3 Advanced Electrical Components. Reward: Red Light Stick Blueprint.
• Stage 3 — Safeguard the Building Site: Deal damage to ARC enemies threatening the construction on Pendola Pass. Reward: Decorative Chair, 15 Planks, 5 Durable Cloth, and Outpost unlock.

One thing worth knowing before you start: you can view all three stages in advance. That means you can start stockpiling the materials for Stage 2 while you’re still working on Stage 1. This matters because a lot of players breeze through the photograph objective and then realize they already sold or recycled the materials they need. Don’t let that be you. Our complete loot table guide is a solid reference for knowing what to hold onto.

Stage 1 — Research Topside Living Conditions (Camera Objective)

Research Topside Living Conditions

The first stage sends you to Blue Gate with a fairly simple task on paper: photograph a farmland house around the Ruined Homestead area. Simple, that is, until you realize you can’t complete it without an actual Camera in your loadout.

The Camera is not provided to you by the quest. You have to bring one yourself. There are three ways to get one:

• Buy from Shani: Easiest option when she has it in stock.
• Craft at the Workbench: Works if you have the materials on hand.
• Find one Topside: Cameras can appear as loot during normal raids.

Once you’re in Blue Gate with a Camera, head toward Ruined Homestead and find one of the farmland houses around the area. You don’t need to photograph anything specific inside the building — you just need to frame the farmland house with the Camera until the objective recognizes it. There’s no need to clear out all the ARC in the area first either. If things are busy around Ruined Homestead, approach from the quieter side, get your shot, and get out. You can always extract immediately after completing the photo objective if you don’t have anything else to do in that raid.

Completing this stage rewards you with the Camera Blueprint, which means you’ll be able to craft future Cameras without needing to buy them from traders.

Stage 2 — Gather Building Materials

Stage 2 is the most inventory-dependent part of the project. You need to deliver four types of materials:

• 3x Planks
• 5x Sheet Metal
• 10x ARC Alloy
• 3x Advanced Electrical Components

The Planks and Sheet Metal are new items added in Frozen Trail 2.0. Both can be found in most standard containers, with higher concentrations around Industrial POIs. Planks can also be purchased directly from Celeste using Seeds if you’re short. Sheet Metal follows the same general source as Planks.

ARC Alloy is an Uncommon drop from flying ARC enemies like Wasps and Hornets across any map — if you’ve been raiding regularly, you may already have a good stock of it. Advanced Electrical Components are the ones worth paying attention to, since these are the tighter resource and the one most likely to require dedicated farming runs if you haven’t been saving them.

A few things to keep in mind:

• You don’t need to gather everything in one raid. Materials already in your Stash count toward the project.
• Don’t spend these materials on other crafting until you’ve turned them in. It sounds obvious, but it’s a very common way people delay this stage unnecessarily.
• Because you can see Stage 2’s requirements before finishing Stage 1, start banking these while you’re running the camera objective.

If you need help tracking down materials efficiently, our Mechanical Components farming guide and resource farming guides cover general material acquisition strategies that apply here too. Once you’ve turned in all four material types, Stage 2 completes and you receive the Red Light Stick Blueprint as a reward.

Stage 3 — Safeguard the Building Site (ARC Combat Objective)

The final stage is a combat task: you need to head to Pendola Pass — the new map added with Frozen Trail 2.0 — and deal damage to the ARC enemies threatening the construction effort. This involves dealing damage to flying ARC and engaging Bullies, the new heavy ARC enemy introduced in this update.

This stage is generally the quickest of the three. Load into Pendola Pass, engage ARC enemies in the area, and deal sufficient damage to complete the objective. You don’t need to complete it in a single raid — progress accumulates across runs. Our Pendola Pass map guide is worth consulting before your first run there, and if you want context on the new ARC threats you’ll encounter, check out our dedicated enemy guides for the Hydra, Skulker, and Bully.

Completing Stage 3 wraps up the Sheltered Retreat Project entirely. Your rewards are a Decorative Chair, 15 Planks, 5 Durable Cloth, and — most importantly — full access to your Outpost and its Research Workstation.

What You Actually Unlock With the Outpost

This is where things get genuinely interesting, because the Outpost is more than a box you tick off. Here’s everything that opens up once Sheltered Retreat is done:

• Research Workstation: The endgame progression hub. Provides a second route to unlocking gear and Blueprints through Research Points, rather than relying entirely on random loot drops.
• Outpost Modules: Expand the Outpost structure with additional rooms and sections, increasing what you can build and research.
• Amplified Weapons: With the Research Workstation upgraded to Level 4, supported weapons can reach the new fifth quality tier with branching, permanent upgrade paths.
• Furniture Designs: 100 collectible cosmetic designs that let you customize the look of your personal Outpost — essentially a Blueprint system for furniture.
• Blueprint Crafting and Design Crafting: Additional recipe unlocks and crafting paths via the Research Workstation.

The Outpost is fundamentally a progression hub. Think of it as the endgame version of the Workshop — the place where your long-term gear goals actually live.

The Research Workstation — How It Works

The Research Workstation is the core of the Outpost’s functional value. Once unlocked, it gives you access to three main research categories:

• Blueprint Crafting: Research and unlock weapon Blueprints and gear recipes through Research Points instead of pure drop luck.
• Design Crafting: Unlock and craft Furniture Designs for Outpost customization.
• Amplified Research: The endgame tier — unlock branching upgrades for the 15 supported Amplified Weapons once the station reaches Level 4.

The Research Workstation has four upgrade levels, and each level requires the matching Outpost level before it can be upgraded further. That means you can’t just dump materials into maxing it out immediately — Outpost progression and Research Station progression are linked. Level 1 of the Research Station costs 3 Mini Pumps, 35 Planks, and 5 Battered Paperbacks to start. Costs scale from there as you push higher.

For new players still getting their footing with the crafting and upgrading systems, our Workshop upgrade guide and Gunsmith weapon upgrade guide cover the earlier progression layers that feed into this system. Understanding how the Workshop operates first makes the Outpost’s Research Workstation much easier to manage. Also worth keeping in mind: the new Stiletto and Bantam weapons added in Frozen Trail 2.0 are part of the expanded research progression path, though their Blueprints can still be found through normal raid loot.

Amplified Weapons — Why the Research Workstation Level 4 Matters

This is the biggest payoff for investing in the Outpost. Once your Research Workstation hits Level 4 (alongside a Level 4 Gunsmith), the Amplified Research section opens up — and with it, the ability to push 15 existing weapons to a new fifth quality tier with branching, permanent perk upgrades.

We’re talking meaningful changes here, not just stat bumps. Confirmed examples include a fully automatic Burletta, a scoped Renegade for long-range precision play, and a Rattler with a 64-round drum magazine and incendiary rounds. These aren’t cosmetic — they change how you fight. For a full breakdown of every Amplified Weapon, its required Module, all research project requirements, and the best upgrade paths to prioritize, check our dedicated ARC Raiders Amplified Weapons guide.

The short version: if you’re playing anything beyond casual, getting the Outpost unlocked and working your Research Workstation toward Level 4 should be your main progression goal right now in Frozen Trail 2.0. Everything else feeds into it.

Outpost Furniture Designs — The Cosmetic Side

Alongside all the functional progression, the Outpost also introduces a full cosmetic system via Furniture Designs. Frozen Trail 2.0 adds 100 Furniture Designs in total, and they work just like weapon Blueprints — find the Design, learn it, then craft the furniture piece at the Research Station.

Here’s where all 100 designs come from:

• 73 Designs can be found Topside during normal raids.
• 4 Designs are exclusive to the Frozen Trail Reward Pass.
• 1 Design is exclusive to the Collector DLC.
• The remaining Designs come from other progression and reward sources.

Furniture doesn’t interact with or improve functional systems — it’s purely cosmetic customization for your personal Outpost space. That said, with 73 Designs scattered across Topside loot, you’ll naturally pick them up over time just by raiding. If you’re aiming to collect all of them, it’s worth incorporating Topside container runs into your regular rotation, especially across maps you might not visit as often. Our blueprint farming spots guide overlaps well with Furniture Design hunting since both reward deliberate multi-container route planning.

Tips for Unlocking the Outpost Faster

• Check Stage 2 requirements before starting Stage 1. Bank the materials in advance so you’re not grinding an extra three raids after the photograph objective.
• Don’t recycle ARC Alloy. You need 10 of them for Stage 2, and it’s easy to burn through your stock without realizing it.
• Buy the Camera from Shani before your first Sheltered Retreat raid. Trying to find one Topside when you need it is a frustrating gamble. Just buy it.
• Approach Ruined Homestead tactically. You don’t need to clear the whole area. Get in, take the photograph, get out. Simple extraction after is totally valid.
• Head to Pendola Pass with a solid loadout for Stage 3. The new Bully enemies hit hard. Having a reliable weapon ready makes that stage much smoother — our best tips and tricks guide and early skills guide help you dial in your setup before the fight.
• Start upgrading your Research Workstation immediately after the Outpost unlocks. Level 1 costs are manageable and the sooner you start pushing it toward Level 4, the sooner Amplified Weapons open up.
• Keep your stash healthy while grinding. Use the stash and storage guide to make sure you’re not space-constrained when banking materials, and the recycle and sell guide to make smart decisions about what you actually need to keep.

You can also grab ARC Raiders on PlayStation or Xbox if you haven’t already picked it up. For broader context on what Frozen Trail 2.0 adds beyond the Outpost — including the expeditions wipe system and how legacy progression works — the expeditions and wipe system guide is worth a read alongside this one. And if you want a full picture of the quests and projects available to you as you work through the Outpost unlock, our complete quests and missions list keeps everything organized in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions — ARC Raiders Outpost