ARC Raiders Guide: How to Complete To the Skies Quest

The To the Skies quest in ARC Raiders is one of those missions that looks straightforward on paper and then quietly eats two raids worth of your time because you forgot to stock up on materials beforehand. Apollo wants you to repair a prototype gondola intended to shuttle raiders up to Pendola Pass, which means scanning a couple of crashed ARC machines and tracking down four specific components before you can even touch the prototype itself. Do the prep work first and this quest wraps up cleanly. Skip it and you'll be farming mid-raid.

What do you need before starting To the Skies?

Before heading out, check your stash. The quest requires four ARC components, all Rare tier, and you may already have some sitting in Speranza from previous raids. Bringing them pre-loaded saves a full deployment.

Here's every material you need and the fastest ways to get each one:

ARC Raiders Guide: How to Complete To the Skies Quest

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How do you scan the crashed ARC Probe and Courier?

These two scanning objectives can be completed on any map and in any order. Both ARC Probes and ARC Couriers appear at random crash sites across the surface, so there's no fixed spawn you can beeline toward. The reliable method is watching for black smoke columns rising from the terrain and checking your map when you get close. Once you're within range, the machine's icon appears and you can interact with the head of the wreck to scan it.

The Electromagnetic Storm map condition dramatically increases the number of crashed ARC machines on the surface, making it the single best condition for knocking out both scans quickly. If you see that condition available, prioritize it.

ARC Raiders Guide: How to Complete To the Skies Quest

After scanning, breach the wreckage. Couriers in particular can drop an ARC Pop Trigger, which is one of the four repair components. Getting it here saves you from hunting Pops separately.

Where are all the Gondola Prototype locations?

Once both scans are complete and you have all four materials, you need to find the Gondola Prototype. It appears on four different maps, but you only need to repair one of them. Pick whichever map you feel most comfortable running.

ARC Raiders Guide: How to Complete To the Skies Quest

Spaceport is generally the most navigable option. The prototype sits east of the eastern exfil elevator, resting on its side near some crates beside a raider structure. The location is close enough to the elevator that you can repair and extract without crossing the entire map.

Riven Tides works well if you're already farming that map. The prototype is tucked under a small bridge at the south end of the Dried Riverbed. Follow your quest marker and it'll be hard to miss.

For more Apollo quest walkthroughs and other mission guides, the complete ARC Raiders quest list covers every mission with objectives and rewards in one place.

How do you repair and activate the Gondola Prototype?

With all four materials in your inventory, approach the prototype and install each component at its interaction point. The order doesn't matter. Work through all four:

• Install ARC Performance Steel
• Install ARC Pop Trigger
• Install ARC Thermo Lining
• Install ARC Synthetic Resin

Once all four are slotted in, interact with the activation prompt. The gondola powers up and then promptly explodes. That's the intended outcome, not a failure state. The quest registers as complete the moment it activates.

ARC Raiders Guide: How to Complete To the Skies Quest

Back away from the prototype before hitting the activation prompt. The explosion has a radius and standing directly on top of it is an avoidable way to take unnecessary damage.

After activation, extract safely and return to Speranza to collect your rewards from Apollo.

What are the To the Skies quest rewards?

Completing To the Skies pays out experience and a set of ARC crafting materials that partially replenish what you spent on the repair.

The reward doesn't include an ARC Pop Trigger, so any extras you collected during the quest are yours to keep. The 8,000 XP is solid for a single quest and the three-stack of each material makes this one of the better resource-positive quests in Apollo's chain.

Tips for completing To the Skies efficiently

After running this quest a few times, a few patterns become obvious:

• Pre-load your stash. Check for ARC Performance Steel, ARC Thermo Lining, and ARC Synthetic Resin before deploying. If you have all three, you only need to find a Pop Trigger on the surface.
• Scan and breach Couriers immediately. They're a direct source of the Pop Trigger. Don't leave a breached Courier without checking the loot.
• Queue into Electromagnetic Storm when available. The increased crash density means you can hit both scans in the first few minutes of a raid.
• Commit to Spaceport or Riven Tides. Both have well-defined Gondola locations and reasonable extraction routes.

If you're working through Apollo's full mission chain, the Battening Down quest guide and the Shoring Up Defenses walkthrough are worth reading alongside this one. ARC Raiders is a deep extraction shooter and Apollo's quests tend to chain together, so clearing them in sequence keeps your progression moving without backtracking.

For a broader look at everything available in the game right now, the full ARC Raiders guides collection has walkthroughs covering quests, trials, and progression systems.