I’m sorry for all the dead bodies I left behind while walking from Ireland to China in Crusader Kings 3’s brilliant new DLC

The Roads To Power are paved with good intentions

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We pitch our tents outside Constantinople and crack open the ale. In the light of the campfire I examine my travel companions as they party. There’s an Ashkenazi rabbi, a Saxon serf, some French knights, a Czech spy, a German dwarf, and a pair of inseparable Italian peasants. This rowdy band of roustabouts I’ve collected in the Crusader Kings 3 ’s Roads To Power expansion has the feeling of a found family, each fellow wanderer sporting their own ambitions and quirks. They won’t all make it. Many of the people I’m looking at in the glow of these embers will fall on the road, victims of robbery, landslides, and animal attacks. One of them will sacrifice their life to save the rest of us. All will bring me a step closer to my goal: I am walking from Ireland to China.

The Roads To Power expansion introduces a lot of neat Byzantine empire stuff. But the real attraction, for me, is that it also now lets you become a “landless adventurer”. I’ve already written about how this completely changes the game . Here I’ll be experiencing the adventurer’s life first hand. Following the example of Marco Polo and Ibn Battutah, I’ll use the character creator to rustle up a strong Irish lad who wants to see the world. His name is Cathmál a hÉrinn.

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Although I ensure Cathmál is a well educated country Gael, he will also turn out to be incredibly horny. As an 18-year-old pagan born out of wedlock in 1066 with no claims to any land of his own, he has good reason to go wandering. The character creation screen of CK3 is well-stocked with useful traits and characteristics we can take advantage of. Cathmál is thrifty (good at earning cash), impatient (travels 25% faster than normal) and brave (100% more likely to die horribly in a battle). He is the leader of a new band called the “Turbulent Travellers”. His emblem is a salmon. It is symbolic of travel, fertility, and tastes great with rice, although he does not yet know what rice is. His motto is “China or Death”.

There are plenty of other skills I could pump into our young friend, but part of the appeal of an adventurer’s life is to gather flecks of personality as you roll along, like sugar on a fresh donut. The journey will make the man.

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With all the preparation done, I recruit some friends and set out for the exotic land of Wales. One of my oldest pals, a violent brute called Fothad the Hawk, comes with me. He is described as “significantly more likely to harm others”. I love him dearly.

To move from place to place you click on a county and press a simple “travel” button. The map changes into “travel planning” mode. Every act of relocation sees your wee figure strutting over the world map. This uses up provisions, a foody currency that acts as the material representation of your campmates stuffing their faces with apples scrumpied from nearby orchards.

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But more often said apples are earned through contracts. Intimidate a local tax dodger, say. Or build a tower for a noble as a phallic symbol of his power. These can be as simple as choice-heavy prompts with lots of skill checks, or as complicated as multi-step schemes. To keep contracts fresh, you have to keep on the move.

It’s a big contrast to how Crusader Kings is normally played. It sometimes feels like the horsey vagabonding of Mount & Blade (a series that itself could be described as: “What if Crusader Kings but in third person?”). As a fan of both games, playing as an adventurer makes me deeply giddy. Especially when Fothad gets himself into a fight with a Welsh man on the way to London.

Fothad the Hawk is a wirey 30-something Celt with a fickle temper. His opponent is a fully armoured knight errant. As an 18-year-old, I decide Cathmál won’t get between them. Fothad, the absolute legend, doesn’t need armour to do a big stab, and the Welsh fella is slaughtered in the fray. We should probably leave the country.

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This might have been avoided. When you plan a trip, you can see the likelihood of scrapes you’ll get into along the way. The map becomes colour-coded, showing war torn regions and hot spots. Gloucester has some dodgy looking bandit forests, for example, where “many travellers go missing”. Luckily you can customise your route by adding detours, region by region. You can also buy a “wilderness kit” to prep you for forest terrain, or hire mercenary guards. For now, we’ll simply go a little further north, around the forests. This eats up more provisions and adds only a few lower-risk encounters. It’s a pattern of travel I’ll repeat throughout the game. I’m sure the roads of England will be relatively safe though, right?

What follows is a journey marred by four vicious attacks including wild animals, muggers, and a beautiful gaelic assassin hired by an English lord who simply didn’t like the look of us as we passed through his fields. (I keep meeting gaelic people everywhere I go; this is generally the case in real life too). By the time we reach London I am brutally injured, probably about to die, and having (presumably painful) concubinal sex with a physician I picked up on the outskirts of what is today Slough. She, my friends, is also a gael.

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In my pain, I look at the calendar. It has taken a YEAR to reach the English capital. This feels like terrible progress. Battered, poor, and on the run, I remember that I’ve also made Cathmál a “journaller”, which means he can write to soothe his mind. He dips the quill and thinks of distant China, wondering if his goal is truly possible…

1067

Cathmál has recovered from his wounds, and prepares the troupe for a departure to Europe proper. His brush with death has given him some perspective. Perhaps it is time to choose an heir. He chooses the doctor he is fucking.

1068

The gang has arrived in Barcelona, on a mission to escort an emissary from Bruges to the court of a Catalan duke. Everyone in the hot city is coughing. We throw the sick emissary into the duke’s lap and prepare to leave before we too catch the “Barcelonian Sweats”.

1069

We camp outside the walls of Klingenberg, home of the Holy Roman Emperor. We host a “revelry” to reduce everyone’s stress, and invite the Emperor himself to eat and drink with us. He does not respond.

1070

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Cathmál has, for some reason, enrolled in a university program in Rome. He studies so hard he nearly has a mental breakdown. But then two Italian peasants, Carlo and Lealdo, break into the uni and start getting sloshed on the monk’s wine. They teach Cathmál to relax, and become good friends, joining him on the journey.

1071

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On the way to Greece, we are hounded by a terrible new beast called the “mosquito”. Fothad, the absolute mad lad, gets his shirt off and acts as a kind of sacrificial blood magnet for everyone. His pecs no doubt glittering with red speckles, he remains the unbeatable himbo of the troupe.

1072

We host a party outside Constantinople. We neglect to invite the Emperor (or his mysterious co-Emperor). Neither is offended.

1073

We arrive at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where Cathmál is pained to discover he must wait many years for the “attend university” decision to “cool down”. Thirsty for knowledge, or maybe something else, he instead starts learning Greek from a woman the band picked up in Thessaloniki.

1074-1075

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Our gang of Western weirdoes spends a whole year in the court of local ruler, Agha Abd Al-Hamid, serving as his “entertainment”. We are forced to leave when the courtiers grow tired of us, claiming our stories are " a pack of lies", which is only partially the case.

1076

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On the banks of the Tigris, we are surrounded by bandits. An Ashkenazi champion, Menashe, steps forward and tells the rest of us to flee, he will take care of this rabble. He dies heroically. Without his intervention, Cathmál would have perished.

1077

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In the bars of Kabul, I go to see a storyteller. Every city has one. As a detached listener, the player only ever catches the very last lines of these tavern tales, usually a glimpse of some myth from around the world. Here, in Kabul of all places, Cathmál hears again the legend of the Irish giant Finn MacCool, told by a gluttonous yet warlike Afghan woman glugging violet sharbat. I like to think that it was a reminder to Cathmál that the world is connected not only by trade wagons and winding paths but by stories, tales travelling down silk roads as easily as cashmere and coin.

1078

Three friends get eaten by a tiger.

1079

The travellers pitch their tents in the shadow of Mahabodhi temple, the site where the Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment. Everyone gets drunk.

1080

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After a year of working here, the sights, sounds, and smells of Bengali life call powerfully to Cathmál. Here he stands, on the cusp of his goal, with the splintered lands of China lying just beyond a single mountain range. And yet the Buddha smiles warmly at him, teasing a life content with what he already has: friends, peace, green fields, roots. Perhaps it is enough to be satisfied here. Does he really need to see another country? To meet yet more people? To chase yet more of the shifting earth?

1081

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Yes. He does. A full 15 years after Cathmál set sail from the shores of Ireland, our boy lands in the city of Xingqing, capital of the Mjinjaa kingdom and one precursor to modern day China. He immediately gets to work seducing the King’s wife.

Epilogue

So. Cathmál made it. And importantly, so did his friends, his many lovers, his children (he had two along the way, real rascals), and his best buddy of all time, the jolly murderer Fothad. Others were lost along the way. Ernst, my dwarf quartermaster and one of the most competent people I will ever meet in this life or in real life, disappeared in a landslide. So did Carlo, one of the kind Italian pissheads. They were not the only losses. I probably lost more followers to mountain-climbing accidents than I did to war, hunger, or banditry put together. Alongside the death, illness, frostbite and aches, my fellow travellers also suffered many year-long hangovers. One or two of them adopted pets.

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I cannot stress how much of a good time I’ve had with this DLC. Only building a multicultural empire of turtles and insects in Stellaris has brought me more entertainment in a Paradox game. Yes, it can get repetitive as you dismiss some of the same dialogue boxes over and over. But there’s still a good variety of events (and this was me playing entirely legally - without accepting any of the well-paying “criminal” contracts).

“Travelling gives you a home in a thousand strange places, and makes you a stranger in your own land.” It was the big lad, Ibn Batutta himself, who said that - aka, the original Lonely Planet travel writer. Which reminds me: there’s one more thing you can do as a traveller in Roads To Power, provided you meet the hefty requirements. You can write a book of travels.

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Cathmál has already done this (he got started in India). His heirs can now inherit this book, granting them a hefty learning bonus. It’ll be useful for his whelp of a son and waif of a daughter. After all, Cathmál might not make it back to Ireland himself. Indeed, some say he never made it to China at all, that he was stabbed to death by bandits on the banks of the Euphrates. Others swear he was the one mauled to death by a tiger in the foothills of Kasmir, not his entourage; that he carries around a dark scroll entitled “save file” that gives him an uncanny ability to persist. Slander! I won’t have it. Our boy made it to his destination by the skin of his own motto: “China and/or death”.

He has written the tale to prove it.

Crusader Kings III

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

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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.

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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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