Best Locations to Find Cooling Fans in ARC Raiders

Cooling Fans are one of the first rare materials that can hard-stall progress in ARC Raiders. The item points you toward Technological areas, but most random containers in those zones are a dead end.

This affects players pushing the Expedition Project Stage 2 requirements and anyone trying to stockpile early tech materials. You can spend hours searching desks and drawers and still come out empty.

This guide fixes that by giving you the two most reliable Cooling Fan locations and the fastest route through each. It does not try to list every possible spawn on every map.

Before You Farm

Cooling Fan Route Checks

• If you want the fastest Cooling Fan route: go to Buried City and run Space Travel. Start at Buried City Cooling Fan Route.
• If Space Travel is crowded or already looted: pivot to Dam Battlegrounds and run Research & Administration. Go to Dam Battlegrounds Cooling Fan Route.
• If your selected map has the Night Raid special condition: read Night Raid Cooling Fan Farming first, then run either route.
• If you are using Free Loadout: plan to extract sooner because Free Loadout has no Safe Pockets. Use Cooling Fans Safe Pocket to understand the limitation.

ARC Raiders Cooling Fan Loot Targets

Cooling Fans can spawn in Technological areas, but the container type matters more than the room you are standing in. Your best odds come from large breachable electrical machinery cabinets and the bigger tech terminals, not random drawers or tiny desk computers.

1. Pick a route that keeps you inside Technological areas for most of the run.
2. Prioritize any large breachable electrical cabinet you see.
3. In Space Travel, search the larger reel terminals before you search small desktop computers.
4. Use vertical server terminals as your second pass when the big terminals are empty.
5. Ignore low-yield containers unless the area is safe and you are already there.

Dam Battlegrounds Cooling Fan Route

Target Location: Research & Administration.

This route is a fast loop through a cluster of large electrical cabinets. It is one of the most consistent early places to find Cooling Fans because the cabinets are concentrated in a small interior path.

1. Deploy to Dam Battlegrounds.
2. Head to Research & Administration.
3. Enter through the main admin entrance.
4. Take the zipline behind the desk to go up.
5. Walk straight ahead.
6. Turn left down the corridor.
7. Turn right into the room with the broken blinds.
8. Breach and loot every large electrical cabinet in that room.
9. Secure any Cooling Fans you find.
10. Extract at the nearest available exit.

Buried City Cooling Fan Route

Target Location: Space Travel.

Space Travel is the most reliable Cooling Fan farm because it is packed with the right tech containers. It is also a red Loot Value High building in the middle of the map, so plan for other Raiders.

1. Deploy to Buried City.
2. Move toward the Space Travel building in the middle of the map.
3. Enter Space Travel and take the stairs up.
4. Go to Level 6.
5. Search the large reel terminal in the Level 6 room to the southwest before the breach door.
6. Search the large reel terminal on Level 6 behind the elevators.
7. Go to Level 4.
8. Search the large reel terminal by the sand behind the elevator.
9. Go to Level 3.
10. Search the large reel terminal in the southwest corner of the room.
11. Search any breachable vertical server terminals you see as a second pass.
12. Leave Space Travel and head to the nearest extraction route.

Night Raid Cooling Fan Farming

Night Raids are a special condition that can apply to a map. When active, loot quality is better, but the threat of ARC is higher, so indoor routes matter more.

1. On the map screen, look for the Night Raid special condition.
2. Select a location that currently has Night Raid active.
3. Run either the Space Travel route or the Research & Administration route.
4. Extract earlier than usual once you have a Cooling Fan secured.

How to back out

1. Pick the same map when it is not running Night Raid.

Cooling Fans Safe Pocket

Finding a Cooling Fan is only half the job. If you die, unsecured loot drops. Safe Pocket slots are how you keep a Cooling Fan even if the run goes bad.

Important: Free Loadout does not have Safe Pockets. If you are on Free Loadout, your best protection is extracting faster.

1. Open your inventory.
2. Locate your Safe Pocket slot.
3. Move the Cooling Fan into the Safe Pocket slot.
4. Rotate toward extraction immediately.

DamnModz ARC Raiders Options

ARC Raiders Cooling Fan FAQs

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