The Boarding the Frigate quest in ARC Raiders drops you in the path of the game’s biggest airborne nightmare introduced in the Frozen Trail update. This colossal aerial fortress (or ARC machine) rotates across locations under the dedicated ARC Frigate map condition, which is to say you can find it anywhere except Stella Montis. Taking this giant beast down is an endgame ordeal, but this quest only requires you to hitch a ride, survive the climb, and spray enough lead into three ARC models to claim your payday.
How to Complete Boarding the Frigate in ARC Raiders
Boarding the Frigate has four objectives. Once you complete the first boarding step, the other three unlock that are just three sides of the same coin, and you can finish them however you want:
- Find a way on top of the Frigate
- Damage a Hydra (100)
- Damage a Vaporizer (100)
- Damage a Rocketeer (100)
You only need 100 cumulative damage against each target. Killing blows are completely optional, so you don’t need to clear the Frigate event itself. If you tag all three and get flattened two seconds later, the objectives will remain checked. That said, surviving this encounter takes proper firepower.
Deploy equipped with a Snap or Grappling Hook, because vertical traversal on this rig will test your patience if you try to rely on footwork alone. Carry plenty of ammo—around two to three stacks of medium or heavy rounds—paired with weapons like a Hullcracker or Bettina to strip metal fast. You’ll also want to have Wolfpack or Seeker grenades to throw around to take care of swarming drones, and a spare shield battery will save you when the deck defenses inevitably wake up. Once you’ve done all the preparation and the loadout is ready, queue into a map with the active ARC Frigate event, which runs for about an hour per rotation.
Board the Frigate in ARC Raiders
Only after a few seconds since you land on the map, the Frigate will rumble overhead and lock into a hover position over the sector. Glare in the sky at the Frigate’s bottom and track the small disc-shaped drones, ARC Reclaimers, that peel away from the mothership and spread across the ground. Sprint to a drone wherever it lands, mantle or grapple onto it, and interact with the prompt to Disrupt it.
Disrupting the pod will engage an energy bubble that’ll protect you from the Frigate’s heavy underbelly ordnance and launch the drone back up to the main ship. If the ascent is cut short and drops, disrupt again immediately to finish the trip. After the Reclaimer is docked on the Frigate, jump onto the Frigate by any means to complete the boarding objective.
Reach the Upper Deck
Moving through the dock tunnels will dump you onto the lower exterior wings. From here, you have two ways to reach the top of the machine:
- Head down the spine, and you’ll come across a platform with dual floor consoles. You can’t activate this elevator without a squad, but Snap Hook will let you tether directly up to the catwalk above.
- If you’re solo without climbing gear in your backpack, move along the exterior wing structure. Watch your stamina bar as you mantle around the outer slats toward the front of the vessel, and mind slipping through the deck gaps. Near the forward hull, you will find an open engine exhaust intake. Scramble inside and follow the access chute out onto the Frigate’s top.
Damage the ARC Enemies on the Frigate
The roof is an open battlezone crawling with hostiles. Fire shots on every target ARC to fulfil your 100 damage quota:
- Hydra: Retractable triple-barrel turret pods mounted into the Frigate’s deck plating. Approach the raised center platforms until one springs up, then hammer its exposed chassis or fuel nodes with roughly 30 to 40 rounds.
- Vaporizer: The white-plated heavy drone hovering above the deck. It telegraphs charged laser sweeps across the roof; put rifle fire into its center mass between laser cycles until the quest tracker gets updated.
- Rocketeer: The heavily armored airborne counterpart to the Vaporizer and fires rolling rocket salvos across the plating. Do sustained fire into its side thrusters or frame to bank your damage points.
You can also find Rocketeers and Vaporizers roaming random ground patrols across basic deployments, though Hydras most probably spawn only on the Frigate deck, as I haven’t encountered one anywhere else on the map.
Once all three damage counters reach 100 and the checklist is cleared, extract via surface raider hatches or ride a returning Reclaimer down from the rear dock. Head back to Speranza to claim these rewards:
- 10,000 XP
- Snap Hook
- Wolfpack Grenade
- Rascal I
- 3x Launcher Ammo
