The Rally Point: Humble turn-based wargame The Troop is top of its WW2 class

Betting your hedges

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PLA Studios

For someone so skeptical of taxonomy, I sure love a good subgenre dive. That’s partly because it’s so easy to find a healthy one now, and there’s a joy in shearing down multiple times and still finding material. You can start from “strategy games are in a good state” and go all the way down to “Turn-based strategy wargames that balance detailed simulation with accessibility and are set in World War 2” and still find several strong entries from the last few years.

But it’s The Troop that grabbed me most. It’s a little surprising, given its modest look, and the stiff competition. I think what clinched it is that The Troop has revealed to me something that I already sort of knew, but hadn’t quite caught hold of: that a tank warfare game is all about the pause.

Of course there’s more to it than that, but fundamentally, you need that little moment of tension and drama as the turret slowly turns, an unseen gunner confirms their setup, and only then does the thing happen. It could be a good thing, or a terrible thing, or an inconclusive one that draws the tension out longer still. The pause makes it dramatic either way.

The Troop isn’t an exclusively tanky game either, and in fact you typically have control of very few at once. Infantry spot and flank and generally both precede and support the charge, or even form the core of it while your metalmen harass and snipe. But they too use the pause. Every effect an attack has is indicated by little floating text, listing them all in turn. Once you’re familiar with the animations you already know, of course, that that last volley took out the whole section. But because there’s that little delay as each death is listed followed by the confirmation that the unit’s out, you wait for it anyway. You get a tiny little thrill out of it anyway, a fullstop to that decision you made.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PLA Studios

It often does the little dramatic camera thing a lá XCOM (and a hundred others, yes, but everyone knows XCOM), which highlights that the graphics are part of the charm, too. While Total Tank Generals or Panzer Corps 2 focused on the big picture, The Troop’s skirmish-level fights allow it a detailed 3D engine. It’s not the fanciest; its colour scheme recalls those slightly desaturated rainy days when everything is green, but in a faintly resigned way. But it uses it to its full dramatic effect, without ever overreaching into bombast. Where Second Front has a slightly cartoony look and, say, Valor and Victory was too abstract for me, all this adds up to a game that feels perfectly pitched to carry off a detailed wargame simulation without feeling overly dry or detached, and feeling like a drama about decisions and consequences rather than a game of numbers. At its heart, The Troop feels like a shootout, something even a lot of ostensibly shooty games fail to convey.

It doesn’t hurt that its tutorial is clever, practical, and succinct, and its core campaign scales up comfortably from a tiny scouting confrontation to the tail end of Normandy, with lots of stops along that way that are usually skipped over. Even its beach landing mission gives you the tiniest responsibility instead of overwhelming you with the big one. Dozens of one-off missions are available, plus the traditional Panzer Generals style persistent (and optionally dynamic) campaign where you shepherd a limited set of irreplaceable units who improve with experience.

You don’t really connect with them individually, though, despite their very limited number. Each mission has limited capacity for units, which you kind of rent with a point system, but the selection screen doesn’t tell you what trucks are carrying, so I had no idea I was bringing a second mortar team and not the infantry I needed. On the flip side, it also meant I once took a flamethrower tank by accident (not knowing the brand names, I assumed it was merely a heavy) that I’d have otherwise assumed was too niche. Well it turned out this thing eats nazis and shits ghosts and when I rolled it into a town square it was game over for everyone not made of asbestos.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PLA Studios

Drama, see? It’s understated, but damn it works. You also get the option of renting the unit as reinforcements, making it cheaper but arriving late (same) for a potential dramatic turnaround, if they can actually get to a useful position in time. You can continue the campaign even if you lost a mission too, which you probably will if you bring the rookie replacement units, which reduce your starting morale. It’s not worth it, because morale is army-wide, so starting low can mean your entire team will quit an obviously winning battle because you lost two out of twenty units early. Most battles will end in retreat rather than annihilation, preventing a dreary cleanup slog, but I’d love an option to keep fighting even if it didn’t count towards the score or official outcome.

You can sort of do this, in fact, by disabling morale entirely. The Troop describes itself as “a game, not a simulation”, but is nonetheless a pretty good simulation, down to armour penetration, angles, turret rotation, very long ranges, dud shells, and even using destroyed tanks as concealment. That ethos is reflected more in its attitude to the player, as there are many options to tweak things to your liking, like making infantry slinkier, or switching off the icon that tells you when a unit has been spotted. The latter’s a system I have mixed feelings about. It sounds a bit cheaty, but given the long run up times and lack of recon options it kind of works, and I imagine it being not so much magical psychic game powers as someone plain intuiting that the enemy are watching. The limited ability to move in discrete motions makes this, if not a necessity, a justifiable compromise at any rate. It also adds rather than removes drama at times - tank blind spots are terrifying in smoke and fog, and knowing they’ve seen you can cause as much trouble and doubt as never being sure.

Most interestingly, there’s no overwatch/interrupt system by default, which makes recon very dangerous. Traversing bocage or rounding a corner is particularly deadly (there’s unfortunately no terrain destruction, but then bocage should be a major problem in Normandy, right?), and the movement system offers a gradated tradeoff between speed and safety that often feels like you can either sit there and be useless or move forward and lose someone.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PLA Studios

Overwatch is transformative enough that I’m impressed both that the game works without it, and that it’s an option. It’s a very player-first kind of game. But going without is the default, I think, because it emphasises the need for a combined arms approach. I hate taking casualties in any game, and I love my perfect ambushes, but realistically in the 40s, someone had to step out into the line of fire. Instead of setting up a magic forcefield of free shots, sometimes you really have to halt everyone and bring the infantry up to take out that rocket launcher. You have to know when to pull a tank out and take a few turns to approach from a different angle rather than get into a dangerous slugging match. And sometimes, when letting your tank spend another turn perfecting its shot (gunners have their own separate action points to do this over multiple turns, unless you’ve committed fully to maximum movement) is right, vs firing now and risking a miss in order to cover that scout’s blunder.

I have few complaints. The enemy always goes first, which feels a bit cheap when you’re on defence, and there are occasional discrepancies - I’ve lost AT units even though the machine was intact and another one wasn’t even fired on, and it’s frustrating not being able to restaff decrewed vehicles in campaign. The line of sight and range displays are less convenient than I’d like, and enemy mortars seem to be insanely deadly, one-shotting entire squads inside buildings while my three mortar teams with multiple spotters were lucky to kill one guy every other turn. It could also really use a save system. I appreciate the commitment to living with your mistakes and losses (the game does autosave every turn, mind), but so many missions start with a tedious five minutes of walking your army into position that I’d rate it significantly higher if there was an option to replay from first contact instead. Especially with infantry, who take an entire turn to get over a hedge, which often means three turns of getting to the hedge, climbing over it, then moving away from it. A “start of mission” save to revert to after setting up would be especially useful on missions where you’re setting up a complex defence.

But I list these grumbles out of professional obligation, not because they give me pause. It’s clear The Troop is an ongoing project for Giant Flame, but even if they don’t go on to tweak and expand it they way I’d like, I’ll have no hesitation in naming it not just my favourite turn based World War 2 game, but a standout strategy game to anyone who’s always looking for that perfect level of detailed-but-friendly simulation.

The Troop

PC

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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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