Ammunition Recipe Returns 400% Profit While Most Crafting Loses Money
ARC Raiders players have found a massive loophole in the game's crafting economy. Energy Clips, a basic ammunition type, can be crafted and resold for over 400% profit while every other recipe in the game loses money.
Reddit user Cryptidsspook broke down the numbers. Crafting Energy Clips costs 1,140 coins in materials but produces ammunition worth 5,000 coins. That's a 3,860-coin profit per batch, and it's completely broke compared to the rest of the crafting system.
The timing couldn't be better for players scrambling to hit the five million coin requirement for Expeditions. With server wipes happening every 60 days, this exploit might be the fastest way to secure those five bonus skill points before everything resets.
The Math Behind the Money
Each Energy Clip recipe needs two Batteries and one Advanced ARC Powercell. The output is five Energy Clips, each selling for 1,000 coins individually.
Batteries vendor for 250 coins each, so the pair costs 500 coins total. Advanced ARC Powercells sell for 640 coins. Add those together and the total material investment is 1,140 coins for a 5,000-coin return.
No other crafting recipe in ARC Raiders comes close to this margin. In fact, most recipes actively lose money when you craft and resell items compared to just vendoring the raw materials.
Getting the Materials
Batteries aren't hard to find. They drop from Technological and Electrical loot locations all over the map. Stella Montis is a solid farming spot, and Spaceport and Blue Gate have plenty of locations that spawn them regularly.
Players can also recycle certain items into Batteries. Broken Flashlights, Broken Tasers, Cracked Bioscanners, Geiger Counters, Industrial Batteries, Jolt Mines, Portable TVs, Power Banks, and Showstoppers all break down into Battery components.
Advanced ARC Powercells are trickier. They mainly drop from large ARC enemies like Bastions, Bombardiers, Leapers, Queens, Rocketeers, Sentinels, and Surveyors. Players in late-game who've collected multiple blueprints will have better access to these materials.
ARC Couriers, intact ARC Probes, and crashed ARC Probes can also drop Advanced ARC Powercells. These sources have randomized loot tables though, so drops aren't guaranteed like they are from specific enemy types.
Why This Matters Now
The five million coin Expedition requirement has the community split. Some players think it's too high and encourages toxic grinding behavior. Others argue it damages the game's economy by forcing everyone into pure profit optimization instead of actually playing the game.
Alternative suggestions include tying Expedition rewards to mission completion, battle pass progress, or account level milestones. That would shift the focus from pure currency grinding to actual gameplay progression.
The Energy Clip method offers players who can consistently hunt larger ARC enemies a clear path to hit that five million mark. It's not exactly easy since Advanced ARC Powercells require killing tougher enemies, but it's faster than any other crafting-based approach.
Other Money-Making Methods
Energy Clips aren't the only way to make coins fast. Night Raid loot routes have become popular for generating hundreds of thousands of coins in short sessions. Players map out efficient paths through high-value spawn locations and farm them repeatedly.
Player trading provides another profitable avenue. The standard transaction involves swapping blueprints for Assorted Seeds. Blueprints vendor for 5,000 coins, but stacks of 100 Assorted Seeds sell for 10,000 coins. Trading a blueprint for seeds nets 5,000 coins in profit.
Still, neither method matches the percentage returns of Energy Clip crafting. The blueprint trade generates good profit per transaction, but Energy Clips offer repeatable 400% gains as long as materials keep flowing.
Will Embark Studios Patch This?
Embark Studios hasn't commented on the Energy Clip profit margins. The developer hasn't acknowledged whether this represents intended design or an oversight that needs fixing.
Some community members have jokingly asked discoverers to delete their posts before the devs notice. Others think Embark already knows and considers it balanced because Advanced ARC Powercells aren't easy to farm in bulk.
The materials requirement might be the balancing factor. While Batteries are common, Advanced ARC Powercells drop primarily from challenging late-game enemies. They're rare enough during normal exploration that bulk crafting requires dedicated farming runs against tough targets.
That said, the profit margin is so far outside the norm that a patch seems likely. Adjusting vendor prices is straightforward compared to fixing complex bugs like wall clipping or loot room glitches. A simple value change could happen in any update.
Players looking to capitalize on current prices should act fast. The wider this information spreads, the more likely Embark Studios will prioritize a fix.
What This Says About ARC Raiders' Economy
The Energy Clip situation highlights deeper design questions. Most crafting recipes in ARC Raiders lose money compared to selling raw materials. That makes crafting feel like organized storage rather than actual value creation.
Energy Clips stand alone as the exception. One recipe generates massive profit while everything else operates at a loss. That kind of outlier suggests either intentional design meant to reward players who hunt specific enemies or an unintended oversight in how vendor prices were set.
The community's reaction to Expedition requirements reveals tension between different progression philosophies. Currency accumulation measures time invested but doesn't necessarily reflect meaningful gameplay. Players arguing for mission-based progression want rewards tied to actual content completion rather than economic optimization.
How Embark Studios responds will signal their approach to future content. If they patch Energy Clips quickly, it suggests they view the five million coin requirement as achievable through normal play without exploits. If they leave it alone, it might indicate acceptance that players need accelerated methods to hit major milestones.
Either way, the discovery shows how quickly the community identifies and shares optimization strategies. Players collaboratively analyzed every crafting recipe, found the anomaly, and spread the information across forums and social media. That pattern of collective problem-solving will likely continue as future Expeditions and updates introduce new economic challenges.
For now, Energy Clips remain the fastest crafting-based path to Expedition requirements. Whether that lasts through the next patch or becomes an accepted part of the meta depends entirely on Embark Studios' next move.
