ARC Raiders Field Crates: What They Are and How to Use Them
A Field Crate is a heavy silver box of ARC technology that sits on the ground near a Field Depot. You never open it where it lies. Instead, you pick it up, carry it into the depot, and load it into the pneumatic delivery machine, which sends it to Speranza and pays you back with combat supplies plus 800 XP. Field Crates also count toward the Deliver Carriables trial and the Down To Earth quest, so one short detour can cover three things in the same raid.
Field Crate, Field Depot and Supply Station: Three Different Things
The names get mixed up, so here is how they fit together:
● Field Crate: the carriable silver box. It looks a bit like an oversized battery and spawns close to a depot, often around corners or inside nearby buildings and towers.
● Field Depot: a small, RV-like metal structure with a tall antenna on the roof and a blue tarp draped over one side. Its locations are fixed on each map.
● Supply Station: the pneumatic delivery machine inside the depot. The slot for the crate lights up blue once you walk in carrying one, and the reward compartment sits right next to it.
Speranza wants these crates because of the ARC technology inside them. Shani’s researchers have been trying to crack them open without destroying what is inside. You never get to open one yourself, and the depot pays you for it instead.
Carry Rules to Know Before You Pick One Up
A crate takes both hands, and that changes how the next 30 seconds play out:
● You can’t shoot, heal or use any gadget while holding it.
● Your movement slows down and you can’t jump.
● Dropping the crate frees your hands again, and you can pick it back up after the fight.
● Each crate can only be delivered once per round. If another raider gets it to a depot first, that spawn stays empty until the next raid.
Because gear is locked while you carry, use an Adrenaline Shot before the pickup so your stamina is full for the walk. Clear any ARC around the depot before you lift anything too, since a Hornet or a Wasp overhead is a lot more dangerous when you have no weapon out. If you bring a Snap Hook, you can pull a crate toward you from a ledge or an awkward corner instead of walking up to it.
How to Deliver a Field Crate
1. Head to any Field Depot and look around it for the silver crate. There are often several crates per depot.
2. Clear nearby ARC and check for other raiders while your hands are still free.
3. Pick up the crate and walk it inside the depot.
4. Place it in the highlighted slot on the Supply Station.
5. Wait a moment for the reward compartment next to the machine to fill, then open it and loot it.
The 800 XP lands when the crate goes in. Opening the reward compartment gives no extra XP, though it holds all the loot. After the first drop-off, go back out for the next crate. Squads can also split up and bring several in at once.
What the Depot Gives You
The reward box leans heavily toward consumables you burn through in fights. These are the recorded drops, grouped by use:
● Ammo: Light Ammo (4 to 34), Medium Ammo (11 to 20), Heavy Ammo (14 to 35) and Shotgun Ammo (5 to 27).
● Grenades and throwables: Light Impact Grenade, Heavy Fuze Grenade, Blaze Grenade, Gas Grenade, Seeker Grenade, Lure Grenade, Li’l Smoke Grenade, Firecracker and Showstopper.
● Survival: Bandages (2 to 4) and a Light Shield.
● Weapons: an Il Toro or an Anvil can show up in the box.
Each range is the smallest and largest stack recorded. A single delivery won’t give you all of these, since each box rolls a mix. For a raider who loaded in light, a delivery refills common ARC Raiders Items mid-raid without a fight against a big ARC. The ammo and grenades go straight back into your loadout.
Where Field Crates Spawn on Each Map
In an ordinary round, Field Crates appear on four maps. Stella Montis has no Field Depots. Read each row as a pool of possible spots. A round fills only some of them, and the spawn picks are set when the round starts.
| Map | Field Depots | Possible crate spots | Areas with the most spots |
| Dam Battlegrounds | 6 | 63 | Water Treatment Control (7), Power Generation Complex (7), Water Towers (6), Hydroponic Dome Complex (6) |
| Buried City | 3 | 59 | Buried Properties (10), Red Tower (9), Piazza Arbusto (8), Main Street (6) |
| Spaceport | 5 | 18 | Shipping Warehouse (6), Arrival Building (4), Water Towers (4) |
| Riven Tides | 1 | 6 | Hotel Panorama Azzurro, Customs House, Tennis Court, Beach Bar (1 each) |
Spaceport changes a lot under the Hidden Bunker condition. That condition has 82 crate spots, led by Departure Building (14), Staff Parking (11) and Fuel Processing (7).
Dam Battlegrounds is the easiest map for a first delivery. Its six depots sit at these spots:
● Between Water Towers and Electrical Substation
● West of Water Treatment, near South Swamp Outpost
● Red Lakes Balcony, between Testing Annex and Research & Administration
● Inside the Hydroponic Dome Complex
● The eastern edge of the Power Generation Complex, just south of Raider Outpost East
● Near the southwest corner of the Loading Bay
The Water Towers depot is a good place to start. Its nearby crates turn up inside the towers, at the base of the hills east of Electrical Substation, and in the building at the north end of the substation.
Quests That Send You to a Field Depot
Shani gives two quests built around depots, and each one has to be finished within a single round:
● Off The Radar: visit any Field Depot and repair the antenna on its roof. The quest grants the Black White origin color.
● Down To Earth: visit any Field Depot and deliver a Field Crate to the Supply Station. It comes after Hatch Repairs, leads into The Trifecta, and rewards a Combat Mk. 1 augment.
If both are active, you can climb to the roof for the antenna and carry a crate into the same depot in one run.
Field Crates and the Deliver Carriables Trial
When Deliver Carriables is in the weekly Trials rotation, every Field Crate you load into a depot adds 500 points. Two other carriables score the same way:
The longer Fuel Cells taken to a Generator, such as the big doors on Stella Montis.
The smaller Fuel Cells taken from an Access Capacitor Rack to an Access Capacitor, such as the Reinforced Reception puzzle on The Blue Gate.
Trial points bank only when you extract, and only your best run of the week counts. A raid that ends without extraction adds nothing to the trial, however many crates you loaded in it.
What Field Crates Don’t Cover
Blueprints are not in the recorded depot pool, so crate runs restock a kit rather than unlock new recipes. Raiders who choose to buy ARC Raiders BluePrints are filling that gap, because a learned blueprint opens a craft at the Workshop. Field Crates handle the ammo, grenades and spare shields that keep the gear you already have running.
Grab a crate on your way past a depot, load it, and take the box. The detour is short, and it pays out in every raid where you pass a depot.
