The Aphelion is the energy-burst battle rifle in the ARC Raiders meta everyone is after, and for good reason. It has pinpoint accuracy, long-range punch, and the clean retro ARC silhouette. Early on, getting your hands on the weapon was a nightmare, gatekept by the Matriarch ARC. Following the later update patches, Embark moved the Aphelion blueprint into the general loot pool on the Stella Montis map.
Here’s how to find the Aphelion blueprint and what items you need to craft this weapon once you make it back to Speranza.
How to Get the Aphelion Blueprint in ARC Raiders
When the weapon first debuted with the North Line update, the blueprint dropped exclusively from the Matriarch world boss. You had to endure a grueling fight against an armored behemoth, dodge third-party squads waiting to steal the kill, and scramble over her fallen carcass to loot the Matriarch Core before anyone else snatched the paper. After Update 1.7.0, you can find the Aphelion blueprint as random loot all over Stella Montis.
While you can technically still take the blueprint from the Matriarch’s core after beating it, you no longer have to risk an entire kit in a chaotic world event only to unlock the recipe. The blueprint can spawn in normal containers, yellow workshop drawers, office desks, and filing cabinets at different locations.
Head over to these specific areas to increase your odds of getting your hands on the Aphelion blueprint:
- Assembly Workshop: Clusters of yellow drawer metal cabinets along the interior walls have some of the highest recorded drop rates for tech schematics on the map.
- Cultural Archives & Medical Research: Office cubicles, desks, and locked breach rooms in these POIs contain a lot of search points close together where you can loot multiple containers every minute.
- Control Room: Heavy container density makes this a prime target, though expect some good foot traffic from other raiders probably visiting for the same thing.
For the best possible chances, deploy when Stella Montis has the Night Raid map condition active. This modifier will double the blueprint spawn multiplier throughout the map, and a single night run through the Assembly Workshop or Medical Research corridors can yield multiple pieces in one sweep.
Once you have found the Aphelion blueprint, drag it immediately into your Safe Pocket. Even if an extraction camper wipes you at the elevator, you’ll not lose the item. After safely back in Speranza, open your inventory, select the blueprint, and click Learn and Consume to unlock the crafting recipe permanently.
How to Craft the Aphelion Rifle
Even though you can find the blueprint in a random cabinet and skip the Matriarch fight for the recipe, you still can’t dodge her forever because you’ll also need the Matriarch Reactor to craft the weapon.
Required Bench Level:
- Gunsmith Level 3
Crafting Materials:
- 1x Matriarch Reactor
- 3x Magnetic Accelerators
- 3x Complex Gun Parts
The Matriarch Reactor is usually the bottleneck here. It only drops from the boss, so you’ll eventually have to take down the ARC machine or trade for one in player hubs. The silver lining is that finding the blueprint beforehand removes the frantic RNG pressure, so once you secure a single reactor, you can walk away and craft the gun without worrying about competing rolls.
Magnetic Accelerators are the second hurdle because they have a low drop rate in industrial crates, so you should search electrical POIs and tech containers while stocking up.
ARC Raiders Aphelion Stats
For a rifle with this much hype behind it, its hard numbers back up the reputation. This is all the power you receive by equipping it:
- Ammo: Energy Clip
- Mag Size: 10
- Fire Mode: 2-Round Burst
- ARC Armor Penetration: Strong
- Trait: Experimental
The Aphelion handles like a specialized long-range marksman rifle with near-hitscan energy velocity. In PvE, its strong armor penetration punches straight through hardened chassis plates on Bastions, Rocketeers, and Walkers without chewing through basic kinetic ammo reserves. In PvP, a clean two-round burst will instantly crack a raider’s shield and take a massive bite out of their health bar.
The rifle’s trade-offs are deliberately harsh thanks to a slow firing cadence, a sluggish reload animation, and zero stealth value. Firing a burst will light up the area with blinding white tracers that’ll give away your exact position across the map. Treat it like a mobile sniper platform—take your shots from hard cover, pick off tough targets at range, and keep a rapid-fire secondary gun ready when enemies rush at you.
