Every raid in ARC Raiders ends with the same question: what do I do with all this stuff? Your stash fills up fast, and making the wrong decisions about what to keep, sell, or recycle can stall your progression or drain your coin reserves. This guide establishes clear rules for every major item and material category so you never waste stash space on junk or accidentally sell something you'll desperately need three days later. Bookmark this one — you'll reference it after every raid.
In this guide
Always Keep — Non-Negotiable Items
Advanced Mechanical Components and Advanced Electrical Components are the most important materials in the game and should never be sold under any circumstances. They're worth 1,750 coins each, which makes them tempting to vendor, but they're required in large quantities for every Tier III and IV weapon craft, endgame gear, and Gunsmith modification. Selling them feels good in the short term and causes enormous regret in the long term. Keep every single one you find.
ARC Powercells are another absolute keep. These rare drops from ARC machines are used in high-end Utility Station and Gunsmith recipes that cannot be sourced any other way. They're uncommon enough that you should build a stockpile over time rather than spending them casually.
Keys of all types should always be kept and used on the corresponding map as soon as possible. Dam Control Tower Key, Buried City Hospital Key, Raider Hatch Keys — every key unlocks loot that's worth significantly more than the key itself. If you find a key you don't recognize, look up which locked room it opens and run that map next.
- Advanced Mechanical Components — Keep always, needed for all endgame crafting
- Advanced Electrical Components — Keep always, same as above
- ARC Powercells — Keep always, rare and irreplaceable in recipes
- All Keys — Keep and use on the corresponding map ASAP
- Crafting materials you actively need — Check your next 2-3 recipes before selling anything
Sell for Coins — High-Value Vendor Items
Some items exist primarily as coin generators and have little or no crafting utility. The Acoustic Guitar is the crown jewel of vendor items — this Legendary-rarity find sells for 7,000 coins and has no crafting recipe attached to it. If you find one, it goes in the Safe Pocket immediately and gets sold the moment you're back on Speranza.
Nature items like agave, apricot, candleberries, lemon, moss, mushroom, prickly pear, and great mullein have limited crafting uses and are worth selling once you've stocked enough for any active recipes. Check your Utility Station recipes before mass-selling, but most players will have excess nature items after a few raids on any map.
Generic household items, decorative objects, and anything marked as having no crafting use should be sold immediately. Don't let these clog your stash. The only exception is if an item has an unusually high recycle value — compare the sell price versus the recycled material value before deciding.
Energy Clips were nerfed from 1,000 to 200 sell price in patch 1.20.0. The old strategy of crafting Energy Clips to sell for profit is completely dead. Do not waste materials crafting them for coin generation.
Recycle at the Refiner — Breaking Down Gear
Weapons you'll never use should be recycled at the Refiner rather than sold. Recycling a weapon breaks it down into Mechanical Components, gun-specific parts, and occasionally raw materials. The Mechanical Components alone are often worth more to your progression than the coin value from selling. This is especially true for looted weapons in poor condition or weapon types that are low-tier in the current meta.
Broken or damaged items that sell for minimal coins are almost always better recycled. The Refiner extracts useful components from items that vendors barely pay for. Get in the habit of checking the recycle preview before selling anything worth less than 500 coins — the material return frequently exceeds the coin value.
Excess armor and gear that you've outleveled should be recycled rather than accumulating in your stash. Lower-tier shields and backpacks break down into Rubber Parts, Metal Parts, and occasionally Electrical Components. These raw materials feed right back into the Refiner pipeline to produce the mid-tier components your current recipes need.
The Decision Framework
When you return to Speranza with a full inventory, run through this checklist for each item. First: is it a key, Advanced Component, or ARC Powercell? Keep it immediately. Second: do you need it for any recipe you're currently working toward or will work toward in the next few sessions? Keep it. Third: is it worth more than 500 coins at the vendor and has no crafting use? Sell it.
Fourth: if it's not worth much at the vendor, check the recycle preview. If the recycled materials are useful to your current crafting pipeline, recycle it. If neither the sell price nor recycle output is meaningful, sell it anyway just to free the stash slot — an empty slot has more value than a low-worth item collecting dust.
This framework scales as you progress. Early on, you'll keep almost everything because every material feels scarce. Mid-game, you'll start selling nature items and excess raw materials as your Refiner processes them faster than you accumulate them. Endgame, you'll keep only Advanced Components and rare drops while selling everything else for coins to fund Workshop upgrades.
Safe Pocket Priority in the Field
Your Safe Pocket loot decisions should follow the keep/sell framework in real time during a raid. The moment you pick up an Advanced Mechanical Component, it goes in the Safe Pocket — this is non-negotiable, it's worth 1,750 coins and is irreplaceable for crafting. Keys are next in priority since they gate access to premium loot rooms on future raids.
If you don't have a key or advanced component, Safe Pocket your highest coin-value sellable item. That Acoustic Guitar or rare material find is guaranteed income even if the raid goes sideways. As you loot, continuously compare your Safe Pocket contents against new finds and swap whenever something more valuable appears.
Never Safe Pocket common raw materials like Metal Parts or Rubber Parts unless your inventory is completely empty and that's literally all you have. These items are too abundant and too low-value to justify the protection. Your Safe Pocket is insurance against bad raids — make sure it's insuring something worth protecting.
Conclusion
Good loot management is invisible progression. You won't notice the advantage immediately, but over twenty or thirty raids, a player who keeps the right materials, sells efficiently, and recycles intelligently will be an entire gear tier ahead of someone who makes random decisions. Follow the framework: keep advanced materials and keys, sell high-coin items with no craft use, and recycle gear into useful components. Your stash and your Workshop will thank you.