Surveyor Vaults are the kind of upgrade bottleneck that makes you change how you play ARC Raiders, especially when Medical Lab III is sitting there waiting on parts you just can't seem to find. If you're already stocking up on ARC Raiders Items and still coming up short, it's usually because you're not chasing the right source: the ARC Surveyor. It's weirdly non-hostile compared to everything else out there, but don't let that fool you. It's still hard to pin down, and it loves to disappear the moment things get messy.
Use the storm like cover
If you're running solo, Electromagnetic Storms are your best friend, even though they feel awful. The tick damage adds pressure, and the haze makes it easy to get turned around, but that chaos also shifts where you'll find Surveyor wrecks. During storms, I've had the most consistent results pushing toward the Dam Battlegrounds side of the map, then sweeping through places like Scrapyard and the Old Battleground. Look for the light blue beacon or a thin column of black smoke. That's your clue you're not wasting your time. Keep your kit light, smash the access panel, grab the Vault, and move. You're not there to win a war, you're there to leave richer.
Fighting a live Surveyor without losing it
If you decide to take one down while it's active, expect it to bolt the second you start cracking its outer shell. People make the same mistake over and over: they open fire, the Surveyor rolls off, and suddenly you're sprinting through mobs and noise, basically begging other players to third-party you. The fix is simple. First, cut its route. Second, stun it fast. Showstopper grenades are perfect because that electric pulse buys you a clean window to dump damage. After that, keep pressure on with high rate-of-fire weapons like the Renegade or Venator. If you're bringing something loud like the Deadline, just accept you're ringing a dinner bell for anyone nearby.
How many Vaults you really need
It helps to set a target before you go in, because greed is how most people lose their haul. In practice, you'll want six Surveyor Vaults total: five for the Medical Lab III upgrade, plus one more for the "Mixed Signals" mission. That mission payout matters, too. Shani's reward, the Photoelectric Cloak, can change how you approach solo runs, because it gives you breathing room when you need to slip past players or reset a bad fight. While you're farming Vaults, don't ignore the extra drops either—ARC Motion Cores and Advanced Powercells add up quicker than you'd think.
Get in, get out, and don't overstay
The safest mindset is treating Vault runs like a delivery job: you grab the package and you leave, no sightseeing. The longer you hang around a beacon site or a fresh wreck, the more likely someone else is already lining up a shot. If you're trying to speed up progress or replace what you lost, some players use U4GM to buy game currency or items so they can focus on the runs that actually matter, instead of endlessly re-farming basic gear after a bad extraction.
