I have put a few hundred hours into ARC Raiders at this point, from the early messy tests to the long Cold Snap evenings, and I can tell you the turning point was when I stopped treating it like a basic shooter and started thinking about movement, routes and the economy as one system that either prints or deletes your time and gear, especially when you are trying to keep your Raider Tokens cheap and avoid pointless wipes.

Movement That Keeps You Alive

Most new players run everywhere with shift held down, roll on cooldown and then wonder why they are out of stamina and dead on the floor. The game quietly rewards anyone who learns the slide‑roll chain. You jump, hit crouch while you are still in the air so the slide kicks in as you land, then roll right before your feet fully hit the ground. Done right, you keep most of your speed and you do not take fall damage. I have gone off the Dam towers using that chain and walked away fine, while people next to me splatted. Another thing people miss: you do not have to stand still to heal. Hold the interact button and you can stim or snack while sprinting. It feels small on paper, but when someone is chasing you and you are topping up health without losing speed, it changes how many fights you actually escape.

Smarter Money Routes

The Dam's main Power Gen vault looks like the jackpot, so half the lobby runs straight at it and turns it into a graveyard. If you are trying to build up a stash, that place is more liability than profit. I have had way better runs by hitting the primary vault fast from East spawn, grabbing what I can without over‑looting, then cutting to the West highway overpass for the server rack secondary vault. If you keep moving and do not stop to fight every noise, that route can easily throw you two hundred to five hundred thousand per raid. If you hate PvP or you are coming off a rough streak, the heater in the Buried City parking garage is usually empty and still gives decent loot. During Cold Snap, always check those snow piles outside the main paths. They look boring, but the blueprint drops from them are ridiculous.

Fights, ARCs And Other Players

You can burn through stacks of ammo on ARC patrols if you just spray center mass. Aim for the yellow bits, every time. A Stitcher mag into the eye vents on a Hulk ends the fight a lot quicker than dumping half your inventory into its chest. When they fire those slow fireballs, sliding straight under them works way better than spamming dodge rolls, because rolling often leaves you half in the hitbox and half confused. PvP has its own set of bad habits. The "friendly" wave is almost always the opening to a third‑party or a cheap shot. I stay alive more by pre‑firing obvious corners, placing decoys where I think someone is ratting and forcing them to shoot, rather than relying on perfect aim. Once you accept that everyone is scouting you the same way, you start treating every angle and every sound as a tell instead of hoping for fair fights.

Workshop, Salvage And Outside Help

The workshop is where most people quietly bleed money. Crafting everything that lights up on the menu feels fun for a week, then you realise you have turned a pile of rare alloys into junk you never equip. I keep a short list of builds I actually use, track which alloys and rods they need and then farm server racks with that shopping list in mind. Buying rods in bulk when prices are decent, running dual vaults per session and salvaging anything pink or higher that does not fit my loadouts keeps the loop tight instead of random. When the grind stalls or you just want to skip the broke phase and get to testing new builds, sites like u4gm let you pick up currency or key items fast enough that you can focus on learning routes, fights and movement rather than staring at an empty stash.