Arc Raiders Combat Recon Quest Guide

The Combat Recon mission in Arc Raiders is one of the first quests that really tests your understanding of the Buried City, your patience under pressure, and your ability to plan a route rather than simply chasing firefights. It asks you to scout three different defensive vantage points and then interact with the ARC war machine ecosystem by hunting Spotters and securing a Spotter Relay.

This guide breaks down the objective, explains enemy behavior, gives you safe and efficient routes, and offers survival tips whether you are diving in solo or with a squad. The goal is to help you clear Combat Recon consistently while also using it as an opportunity to gather loot and learn the map.

Quest Overview: What Combat Recon Actually Wants

Combat Recon is a reconnaissance and hunting mission centered on the Buried City, a sand-choked urban zone filled with ARC patrols and high vantage points. To complete it, you must:

• Scout three cover positions around the Buried City.
• Destroy two Spotters (ARC recon drones).
• Collect at least one Spotter Relay from a destroyed Spotter.
• Extract and deliver the Spotter Relay to Shani back in Speranza.

Crucially, the quest does not require everything to be done in a single deployment. You can mark locations and farm Spotters across multiple runs, which lines up with the wider extraction-shooter design where persistence and repeated raids are expected. Extraction-style games like Arc Raiders are designed around this “run-based” cadence, where players steadily accumulate progress, knowledge, and gear across multiple missions rather than one continuous session.¹

Understanding the Buried City and ARC Threats

The Buried City is a compact urban environment dominated by half-buried buildings, tight alleys, and open plazas. It has three key areas for this quest:

• Parking Garage – vertical multi-level structure with exposed roof.
• Marano Park – central park with open sightlines and limited cover.
• Main Street / Plaza Rosa – dense district with rooftop and attic access.

These locations are not only where you scout cover; they are also the primary zones where Bombardiers and their Spotters tend to appear. Bombardiers are heavy ARC units that deploy recon drones. Spotters scan for enemies and relay your position back, often calling in punishing indirect fire or reinforcements if ignored.

Recent research on player behavior in extraction shooters notes that players value predictable but dangerous hotspots: locations where they can reliably find enemies and rewards, at the cost of higher risk.² Combat Recon leans into this philosophy by aligning quest objectives with these high-threat areas, encouraging players to interact with ARC patrol patterns rather than avoiding them entirely.

Recommended Mission Flow and Preparation

You can complete the three scouting objectives in any order, but certain routes are safer and more efficient. Before diving into specific locations, set yourself up properly.

Loadout Suggestions

Your loadout should emphasize mid- to long-range engagement and fast repositioning:

• Primary weapon: Accurate rifle or marksman weapon for picking off Spotters at range.
• Secondary weapon: Close-quarters option (SMG or shotgun) for clearing interiors.
• Utilities:
  • Healing items or deployable med kits.
  • Grenades for emergency crowd control.
  • Any mobility tools or gadgets that help reposition quickly.
• Armor: Prioritize survivability over mobility if you’re new; once confident, lighter builds can help you avoid hits entirely.

Because this is a cooperative shooter with AI-driven enemies, your survivability is directly tied to being able to avoid getting pinned by multiple units at once, something emphasized in design analyses of co-op shooters where target saturation can rapidly overwhelm players.³

Suggested Route Through the Buried City

Most players will find the following route both efficient and relatively safe:

1. Start at the Parking Garage – gain vertical control and scout Spotters.
2. Move to Marano Park – use your knowledge of nearby spotter spawns and extraction routes.
3. Finish at Main Street / Plaza Rosa – secure the last vantage point and exfil nearby.

This path creates a rough loop that keeps you on the move while frequently putting you in positions of height advantage. Verticality is a critical principle in many third-person shooters, as it reduces the number of angles from which enemies can hit you and gives you better sightlines to identify threats early.⁴

Parking Garage: Rooftop Recon and Early Spotter Hunting

The Parking Garage is a tall landmark on the northern side of the Buried City. It is a natural starting point for the quest because it offers:

• A high vantage point to observe patrol routes.
• An early opportunity to identify Bombardiers and Spotters.
• Relatively safe interior pathways if you stay away from the roof edges.

How to Reach the Scouting Interaction

Approach the parking structure from a side with decent cover—avoid marching straight through the most open streets. Once there:

• Use ramps, stairwells, or any zipline you can find to gain height quickly.
• Work your way up to the upper floors, staying near walls and pillars to block incoming fire from outside.
• Look for a stairwell or broken railing at the top levels; the interaction prompt to “scope out” the cover spot is in this upper stair area.

Interacting here completes the Parking Garage portion of your recon objective. Once done, step out onto the roof to assess the wider area—but only briefly. The roof is powerful but dangerous, as you are visible from many angles.

Fighting Spotters Around the Garage

Bombardiers and their Spotters often roam in and around the Parking Garage. To safely destroy Spotters:

• Engage from inside the building whenever possible. Shoot out from windows and doorways instead of standing on the roof.
• Use long sightlines down streets and open areas; Spotters usually orbit above or ahead of Bombardiers.
• Prioritize the drones first; once they are down, you can break line-of-sight with the Bombardier and disengage.

After you destroy a Spotter, you have a brief window to loot it before a Bombardier deploys replacements or repositions. If you are doing the mission on a lower gear level, do not greed: grab the loot quickly and withdraw into the garage interior.

Marano Park: Bus Hideaways and Open-Space Danger

Marano Park sits roughly at the center of the Buried City, framed by ruined buildings and a metro entrance. The Combat Recon objective focuses on the buses buried near one side of the park. This area embodies “high risk, high information”: enemy visibility is excellent, but so is yours if you use cover intelligently.

Finding the Park Scouting Location

From the Parking Garage, move toward the park along streets that provide at least partial cover, using cars and low walls as stepping stones. Once you reach the park:

• Look for the metro entrance structure; the quest-related buses are close to it.
• Enter one of the large buses half-buried in sand.
• Move toward the back of the bus where the interaction point typically appears.

The bus interior is one of the safer micro-locations in the park: walls block line-of-sight, and you can duck behind seats if you come under fire.

Using the Park to Farm Spotters

Marano Park is a prime location to finish your “destroy two Spotters and secure a Spotter Relay” requirement:

• Bombardiers frequently patrol around the park, sending Spotters to scan the open space.
• Spotters often fly low enough that you can hit them from the bus openings or nearby buildings.
• You can kite Spotters toward cover, break line-of-sight, and then re-engage at better angles.

If you are also pursuing projects or contracts that require multiple Spotter Relays, you can deliberately leave the Bombardier alive. As long as it remains active, it will continue to launch new drones over time, letting you farm them at your own pace—just be sure to avoid prolonged exposure in the park center.

Main Street and Plaza Rosa: Attic Overwatch

The final recon objective is tied to an attic vantage point overlooking a plaza in the southern portion of the Buried City, often referred to as Plaza Rosa. This area is more vertical and interior-focused than Marano Park, trading wide-open fields for confined spaces and rooftop battles.

Reaching the Attic Viewpoint

From Marano Park, head south toward Plaza Rosa. Keep these tips in mind:

• Stick to side streets and alleyways rather than main thoroughfares to reduce exposure.
• Look for a cluster of multi-story buildings around the plaza; your goal is a westernmost building with rooftop or upper-floor access.
• Use external ziplines or internal staircases to reach the top floor.

Once on the upper level, you will usually find roof hatches or a skylight. Drop into the attic space and move toward the window or opening facing the plaza. The interaction point for the recon objective is near this lookout, simulating a prepared defensive firing position.

Managing Combat in Tight Attics

Attics combine some of the best and worst features of combat spaces:

• Pros:
  • Excellent view down onto the square below.
  • Limited entry points make it easier to hold against smaller groups of enemies.
• Cons:
  • If enemies enter, you can be quickly cornered.
  • Explosives are devastating in such confined rooms.

To mitigate the risks, avoid firing constantly from the attic window; use it as a recon perch rather than a static sniper nest. Take a few shots, reposition deeper into the building, and only re-peak once enemies lose track of you. Game AI in modern shooters often reacts strongly to sustained line-of-sight, so breaking visual contact is an effective survival tactic.⁵

Spotters, Spotter Relays, and Bombardiers Explained

Understanding the relationship between Bombardiers and Spotters makes Combat Recon easier and informs your behavior in future raids.

How Spotters Work

Spotters are small aerial drones that survey the battlefield and respond to player presence. In many co-op shooters, similar recon units are used to create dynamic difficulty: once alerted, they can increase enemy density, direct bombardments, or track fleeing players.⁶ In Arc Raiders:

• Spotters patrol near Bombardiers and other key locations like the Parking Garage and Marano Park.
• When they detect you, they typically trigger more aggressive responses from ARC forces.
• They drop valuable components and quest items such as the Spotter Relay.

Using Bombardiers Without Fighting Them Directly

Bombardiers are robust, heavily armed enemies. For Combat Recon, you do not need to destroy them at all. Instead, you can treat them as mobile resource generators:

• Identify a Bombardier patrol route near one of your objectives.
• Stay on the edge of its detection range, picking off Spotters when they drift too far from their host.
• Once you have your required number of Spotters and at least one Spotter Relay, leave the area and let the Bombardier live for future encounters.

This hit-and-run approach aligns with the broader design of extraction shooters, where choosing your battles is often more important than winning every possible fight.²

Extraction and Turning In the Spotter Relay

After all three vantage points have been scouted and you have secured at least one Spotter Relay, your final challenge is simply getting out alive and handing the relay to Shani in Speranza.

Planning a Safe Exit

Try to complete your last recon objective near a convenient extraction point. The area around Plaza Rosa often has an exfil option nearby, letting you:

• Finish the attic interaction.
• Sweep the building for loot while enemies are still searching your previous position.
• Slip to the extraction zone using alleyways and rooftops, avoiding prolonged firefights.

Once back in the social hub, turn in the Spotter Relay to Shani to complete Combat Recon and collect your rewards.

Advanced Tips for Solo and Squad Runs

Solo Raider Advice

• Prioritize stealth and cover. You cannot soak damage like a full squad.
• Engage Spotters from buildings and avoid standing in open plazas or on exposed rooftops.
• Do the objectives in chunks. If you complete one or two recon spots and secure a relay early, consider extracting rather than risking everything for one more location.

Squad Tactics

• Assign roles: one player focuses on Spotters, another watches flanks, and a third keeps an eye on Bombardier movements.
• Stagger positioning so the entire team is not caught in a single mortar strike or explosive barrage.
• Call out sightlines from rooftops and attics; information sharing is as valuable as raw firepower.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to finish Combat Recon in a single run?

No. You can complete the scouting objectives and Spotter kills across multiple deployments. The quest tracks your progress persistently, so do not be afraid to extract early if the situation becomes too dangerous.

What if I already have a Spotter Relay in my stash?

If you picked up a Spotter Relay in a previous run, you can often use that item to complete the quest as soon as the scouting objectives are finished. Still, it is wise to collect extras whenever it is safe to do so, as they may be useful for other projects or future turn-ins.

Where are Spotters most likely to appear?

Spotters typically spawn around Bombardiers in the Buried City, with high activity near the Parking Garage, Marano Park, and the Plaza Rosa/Main Street district. If you are not seeing drones, you may be slightly outside their patrol loops; move cautiously toward these hotspots until you hear or see them.

Can I ignore Bombardiers completely?

You can avoid direct combat with Bombardiers, but you cannot ignore their presence. Stay aware of their position, use buildings to block their line-of-sight, and focus on their Spotters instead of trying to destroy the heavy unit itself during this quest.

Is it worth returning to the Buried City after finishing Combat Recon?

Yes. The Buried City offers valuable loot, recurring encounters with Bombardiers and Spotters, and a layout that rewards map knowledge. Learning its vantage points and patrol paths will benefit many future missions.