I was a fool for skipping Widelands, the only game as good as The Settlers

Yup!

Image credit:RPS / Widelands Development Team

Between fifty game releases a day, and among them official successors and open source remakes, most 90s games your grandma bangs on about have some modern equivalent that somewhat fills the gap.

But not The Settlers . There hasn’t been a Settlers game since 1996. Whether they were good or not, its many sequels, as early as 3, started missing the point of the design. It’s the roads , man. The roads!

This isn’t about iconography for its own sake. It’s a design thing, an ethos. The heart of The Settlers was that your towns lived or died based largely on how well you designed your transport logistics. It was all about the roads. It doesn’t even fit into a genre really, let alone the lopsided RTS the sequels collapsed into. It sounds like a typical town builder, especially today when there’s a wealth of games about placing a woodcutter and a farm, but I’m tempted to say it’s not even about gathering resources.

When placing buildings, resource costs aren’t even shown upfront. You’re never watching a counter tick up until you can buy a warehouse. You don’t memorise the material wealth needed to buy things: you trust that your system will provide what’s needed, and has the elasticity to adapt. Your builders set to work as soon as they have the first planks, instead of a UI nagging you “not enough rocks! (have 21 need 22)”.

Image credit:RPS / Widelands Development Team

A more key part is that you build not in the centre of hexagons, but on the point where the lines around them meet. And next to each building is a little flag. You must connect that flag to another with a road, section by section, following those outlines. Goods can move only on these paths, via the noble little guys who carry them. Not assigned to the mine, or player-dictated input/outputs. One guy per road, carrying from flag to flag, always. But the direct path isn’t necessarily best. Height differences can mean steep roads, which means slow movement. They also dictate where’s where’s flat enough for larger buildings, so a longer route can be faster or leave space for a vital smelter. Soon you’ll have a network of paths and workers, all doing their best with what you’ve designed.

It’s indirect, is the thing. Connect a building site to the network and you can watch the builder walk over from the castle, a dozen carriers behind him ferrying wood and stone from a warehouse of their choosing. They might relay from the sawmill if that’s closer. Cut off a road and goods are rerouted, or carried back to storage. You’ll sit and watch sometimes, because “quickly” is a relative term in The Settlers, and because it’s delightful to watch while eating a sandwich (especially with the Amiga version’s immeasurably superior sound and music , where malnourished PC havers settled for horrible warbling synth as usual. Falsen your beliefs by denying it).

Image credit:RPS / Widelands Development Team

It’s also necessary. As with Ostriv (which already outdid The Settlers for watching builders work ), everything you grow or make or mine or bake is a tangible item or piece or bag, visibly carried or waiting on the ground. The interdependence of production chains and slow, distributed baton-passing mean that problems start long before their effect, and you can see them coming if you watch those roads.

You don’t know that the mines stopped because of icons or blaring pop-up messages. You know because there’s nothing coming out of there, and no bread going in. The mill isn’t getting enough wheat, but you knew that because you were watching it. There’s only one road from the windmill, and it connects to your main gold thoroughfare, so the carriers are moving that first.

Meanwhile, the flourless bakery stopped burning coal, so that’s routing to storage instead, slowing movement of fish. That could cause bigger problems, but for now let’s split the road from the fisherman to let the carriers reroute. You can add near endless flags, see, and remake roads freely and instantly. Until recently I’d insist that the closest to a modern Settlers is Factorio , but here you’re reorganising things and people, not building a machine. Enabling, not micromanaging.

A good administrator knows that problems often happen far from their symptoms, and that numbers aren’t the answer. The Settlers understood that economics is not, in fact, about numbers. There are numbers and charts, sure, but you’ll seldom need them. You’re never really worrying about precision or exponential growth, not calculating success in that way. Efficiency isn’t anything that makes the number go up; it’s keeping things moving, keeping everyone supplied. Even combat means not Ctrl+1-ing a zerg of soldiers (as soon as The Settlers 3 gave you direct control of them, the series lost its way), but everyone politely waiting for their turn to fight the next guy in the barracks. Hoarding is implicitly a sign of mismanagement: That stuff should be used for something. Have I mentioned that you’re not the king here, or the mayor, or really an individual at all? There’s no currency either. Workers of the wor(“BUY WAR BONDS” - Ed)

Which brings us, with thematic leisure, to Widelands, which warns outright against such stockpiling. I’d be remiss not to mention that former Settlers lead Volker Wertich is currently part of the team developing Pioneers of Pagonia , an already promising descendant. But after a month of fighting myself to stop playing, it’s Widelands that Pagonia will have fight for the crown.

A slightly mismatched, wonky-looking game, with sometimes limited sound, it lacks some immediate charm. Many buildings look similar, and the wonderfully watchable animations that also communicated problems are now mostly workmanlike, with toggleable overlays to compensate. It’s an open-source project originating in 2002, let’s be fair. But what Widelands lacks in aesthetic polish, it compensates for with, I feel almost treacherous to say, probably a better design than the original. It is dangerously compelling.

Image credit:RPS / Widelands Development Team

None of them play wildly differently, but the nuances give each a unique economy, leaving them similar enough to be enjoyable, but different enough to provide fresh challenge and variety regardless of favourites. That extends to the military too. Combat is an often unwelcome part of building games, but Widelands takes the manufacturing focus of it even further, developing the “build armourers and smelt gold” model into a distinct economy for every tribe.

Image credit:RPS / Widelands Development Team

Even pacifists need not scorn military production, since that’s a measure of victory in the “collectors” game mode, that one exception to the “hoarding is bad” principle. Buildings are never made obsolete, but deconstruction returns some resources, so there’s value in tearing down and redesigning areas over time. You can even send ships to found second towns, and split your road network into independent parts, although you’d need to plan well to achieve much.

It’s not machine building though, thanks to those little people wandering around, the irregularities of terrain and hexidirectional roads (originally a solution to programming limitations - another case of limits making a work great), and emphasis on working with the terrain. Its detail may sound exhausting, and even to a Settleteran there are new things to learn. But the underlying processes of Widelands retain that sense of reason, of problems having a traceable cause and natural solutions. And though a bit faster, it’s still very much about taking your time, looking ahead, and enabling rather than dominating your people. About keeping things moving by determining what paths they can take, not by giving orders, cold calculations or minmaxing.

I doubted there’d ever be a game to match The Settlers, since everyone who tried seems to miss why it worked. I have some complaints about redistributing soldiers, control of individual workshops, and the AI’s seemingly random switching of alliances, but those are petty, petty gripes. Widelands absolutely gets it, in a way almost the entire industry seemed to miss for decades.

Widelands

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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