What to Keep in Arc Raiders – Keep, Sell or Recycle Guide
What to Keep in Arc Raiders
Every raid fills your bag with loot, but stash space and weight are limited, so the real skill is deciding what to keep, what to sell for coin, and what to recycle into crafting materials back in Speranza. This guide covers what’s actually worth holding onto.
Keep, Sell or Recycle — The Quick Rule
| Action | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Keep | Quest items, workshop/workbench upgrade materials, expedition items, and gear you’ll actually run |
| Recycle | Junk and broken tech that returns more material value than its sell price |
| Sell | Trinkets and anything you don’t need elsewhere — pure coin |
What to Always Keep
- Quest items: hold every quest item until the quest is turned in — they’re easy to recycle by accident and a pain to re-farm.
- Workshop & workbench upgrade materials: things like Motors, Cooling Coils, Industrial Batteries, Lab Reagents and Rusted Gears gate your station upgrades. Keep every one until your benches are maxed.
- Expedition / event materials: anything flagged for an active event or expedition turn-in.
- Gear and weapons you run: keep a working set of your main loadouts plus backups, rather than selling and re-buying.
- Scrappy upgrade fruit: Lemons and Apricots are needed to level your Scrappy companion — don’t recycle them while you’re still upgrading.
What to Sell Instead
- Trinkets: they exist for one reason — coin. Sell them every time.
- ARC boss components (Matriarch Reactor, Queen Reactor, Ion Sputter and similar): sell these unless a recipe you’re chasing specifically needs them.
- Surplus common materials: if you’re drowning in cloth, rubber or plastic, sell the overflow — you’ll refill it fast on your next run.
What to Recycle
Most “junk” loot is worth more broken down than sold. Damaged electronics, household objects and broken ARC tech convert into Metal Parts, Wires, Electrical Components and more. See the full what to recycle guide for the best items and yields.
Golden Rule: Recycle at Speranza
Always recycle back at base. Salvaging items topside during a raid only returns half the materials, so carry junk home and break it down in Speranza for the full yield.