ARC Motion Cores are one of the most sought-after materials in ARC Raiders, gating everything from endgame weapon recipes to critical Refiner Station upgrades. The problem is that most players spend their first dozen runs wandering the wrong zones, fighting the wrong enemies, and coming home empty-handed. Here is every reliable method for stacking Motion Cores, ranked from easiest to most demanding.
What are ARC Motion Cores used for?
ARC Motion Cores are mid-to-late-game crafting materials required for high-tier equipment and workshop upgrades. Two of their most common uses are upgrading your Refiner Station and feeding into recipes like the Magnetic Accelerator and explosive Wolfpacks. They also feed back into the economy: recycling a single Motion Core at the bench returns 2x ARC Alloy, so they double as a conversion resource when your alloy stocks run low.
Motion Cores are rare enough that carrying several makes you a target for rival squads. Plan your extraction route before your pockets get full, not after.
Level 3 Refiner needs Motion Cores
Best Ways to Get Motion Cores
Method 1: Arc Probes
Arc Probes are the most beginner-friendly source. These look like downed missiles lodged in the ground or lying on their sides. They emit thick black smoke and a steady beeping sound, so they are easy to spot from a distance. The key advantage is that they are stationary and do not fight back, making them safe to loot without burning ammunition.
The downside is that every other player on the map can hear and see them too. Treat each probe as a contested objective rather than a guaranteed free pickup. Approach from cover, check your surroundings, and be ready to contest.
Method 2: Surveyor Drones
Surveyor Drones are the single best source of Motion Cores in terms of drop rate, but they require some effort to actually kill. These large robots roam open fields on maps like Dam Battlegrounds and Blue Gate. When stationary, they project a bright blue beam of light into the sky, which is your beacon to find them.
The catch: Surveyors are designed to flee the moment they detect danger. Their armor plates lock shut and their thrusters engage. If one starts lifting off, hit it immediately with high-impact rounds or a Showstopper Grenade to disrupt the thruster sequence and drop it back to the ground. Also watch out for their roll attack, which deals collision damage if you are standing too close.
Prime Surveyor hunting maps:
- Dam Battlegrounds (medium danger, open sightlines)
- Blue Gate (medium danger, good perimeter patrol routes)
- Buried City (high danger, check around the Grandioso Apartments area)
Scan the horizon for the blue sky beam before committing to a drop zone. If you can see two or three beams from the insertion point, that is a productive run waiting to happen.
Blue beam marks a Surveyor spawn
Method 3: The Queen and large ARC bosses
For squads willing to take on a serious fight, The Queen and other behemoth ARC units drop Motion Cores on death. The Queen spawns on Dam Battlegrounds during the Harvester event, which means the event flag also draws every other squad on the server toward the same location.
You do not need to land the killing blow to get loot. Focus sustained fire on the heavy yellow leg joints of large bosses. Shattering the leg plating causes resource nodes, including Motion Cores, to drop before the boss is dead. Pop a smoke grenade, grab the components, and fall back. This lets smaller squads compete for the loot without committing to a full boss fight against both the ARC and rival players.
Never attempt the Queen solo. The combination of boss mechanics and competing squads during the Harvester event makes solo attempts extremely high-risk for very uncertain reward.
Method 4: Crafting at the Refiner Station
Once the RNG of surface farming starts to feel unreliable, crafting gives you a consistent fallback. You need a Level 3 Refiner Station in Speranza, then the recipe costs:
- 6x ARC Alloy
Early on, ARC Alloy is scarce enough that crafting Motion Cores feels expensive. By mid-to-late game, when alloy stockpiles grow, this becomes one of the most dependable methods available, especially if you are trying to hit a specific upgrade threshold without risking your gear on the surface.
The recycling loop also works in reverse: if you have surplus Motion Cores and need alloy for another recipe, scrapping them at the bench gives you 2x ARC Alloy each.
Craft Motion Cores with ARC Alloy
How to get out alive with your cores
Farming the cores is only part of the problem. Extraction is where most players lose what they worked for.
Never sprint directly to an extraction point the moment your inventory fills up. Find defensible cover nearby, pop a smoke grenade to obscure your position, and call the lift from behind hard cover. Moving through underground tunnel networks between regions like Broken Pass and Dam Battlegrounds keeps you off the surface sightlines that sniper squads patrol.
For extraction shooter games in general, the rule holds: your loot is worthless until it clears the map. Treat the final 90 seconds of every run as the most dangerous part.
If you are running solo, stick to Arc Probes and Arc Droids in lower-danger zones like Broken Pass. The Surveyor and Queen methods reward squad coordination, not lone-wolf aggression.
Building on your Motion Core stockpile
Once your Refiner is upgraded and Motion Cores stop being a bottleneck, the next progression layer opens up fast. Pairing a solid core supply with good Raider Coin income makes a real difference, and our ARC Raiders economy and coin farming guide breaks down how to keep both resources flowing simultaneously. If you are also working through workshop upgrades, the Rusted Tools farming guide covers the material that tends to become the next bottleneck after Motion Cores.
For everything else the game throws at you, the full ARC Raiders strategy guides collection has you covered.