ARC Thermo Lining looks like just another scrap panel when it drops, but it quietly sits near the top of the game’s fabric economy. It’s rare, recyclable, and shows up only around ARC machinery and enemies, which makes it one of the more targeted farm items once you start thinking about late‑game crafting and workshop upgrades.
ARC Thermo Lining stats and basic behavior
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Game | ARC Raiders |
| Item name | ARC Thermo Lining |
| Category | Recyclable material |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Stack size | 3 per inventory slot |
| Weight | 1.0 kg per item |
| Sell price (vendor) | 1,000 coins |
| Primary drop source | ARC enemies and ARC‑themed activities |
| Loot pool | Tech / Industrial |
In simple terms, Thermo Lining is a rare, medium‑weight scrap item tied to ARC tech. It doesn’t sit in basic trash pools and doesn’t show up in nature or food containers. Instead, you see it around robots, reactors, terminals, and other heavy machinery.
Where Thermo Lining actually drops
Thermo Lining comes from two broad sources:
| Source type | Details |
|---|---|
| ARC enemies | Rewarded from destroyed ARC units; robotic and synthetic targets are the ones to prioritize. |
| ARC activities | Event or mission rewards that are flagged as ARC‑related, often with tech‑heavy objectives. |
On the ground, that translates to a very specific pattern: Thermo Lining sits in Tech and Industrial loot pools. You’re not looking for crates of canned food here; you’re sweeping through powered infrastructure and server‑dense areas.
| Map | High‑value zones | What to search |
|---|---|---|
| Dam Battlegrounds | Control Tower, Turbine Room, Reactor Core | Generator rooms, ARC nests, maintenance platforms near turbines. |
| Blue Gate | Data Center, Central Hangar, Control Tower | Secured labs, active terminals, server racks, sensor clusters. |
| Buried City | Synth Bay, Sub‑Level Labs, Energy Tunnels | Areas with dismantled robots, flickering consoles, cable runs. |
| Spaceport | Reactor Core, Maintenance Wing, Cargo Bay | Power generator rooms, drone wrecks, ARC storage pallets. |
Open fields, shacks, and nature‑only areas can be skipped when you’re specifically chasing Thermo Lining. The drop logic favors dense structures and ARC hardware, not organic or civilian clutter.
Recycle vs salvage: how much fabric you actually get
Thermo Lining’s real value lies in the fabric you can extract from it. The game treats recycling and salvaging as two different operations with different payouts.
| Action | Input | Output | Coin value of output | Coin delta vs selling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sell to vendor | 1× Thermo Lining | 1,000 coins | 1,000 coins | Baseline |
| Recycle | 1× Thermo Lining | 16× Fabric | 800 coins (16 × 50) | −200 coins vs selling |
| Salvage (in‑raid) | 1× Thermo Lining | 9× Fabric | 450 coins (9 × 50) | −550 coins vs selling |
Recycling is the full workshop breakdown you run outside of a raid. That conversion hits the item’s value: the game explicitly applies a 20 percent coin loss compared with just selling the lining outright.
Salvaging is the lighter in‑raid option, meant for freeing space when you want materials more than raw coin. The output is capped at nine fabric per piece, and you lose more coin value relative to selling or full recycling. The trade‑off is space and immediate material access.
How Thermo Lining fits into ARC Raiders’ crafting loop
Fabric is a basic material with a long shopping list: it feeds into benches, medical upgrades, gear projects, and a spread of refined cloth items. Thermo Lining is one of the more efficient ways to jump from “scrap ARC tech” to “bulk fabric” in a single click.
| Use case | Why Thermo Lining helps |
|---|---|
| Workshop upgrades | Provides a quick injection of fabric for upgrade thresholds without needing to hoard low‑level cloth loot. |
| Advanced weapons | Lets you turn rare ARC scrap into basic materials required by late‑tier blueprints that lean heavily on fabric. |
| High‑tier gadgets | Supports energy and support gadgets that demand large stacks of basic materials but drop fewer direct cloth items. |
No known quests or expedition projects list Thermo Lining itself as a requirement. It sits on the “recyclable” side of the item roster rather than the “keep for quest” column, which leaves you free to treat it as a conversion token: either sell it for coins or shred it into fabric, depending on what your hideout currently needs.
When to keep, recycle, or sell Thermo Lining
Inventory pressure is constant in ARC Raiders, so Thermo Lining competes with other rare recyclables and quest items. The decision tree is straightforward once you look at the value per slot and your current goals.
| Scenario | Recommended action | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Early game, coin‑starved | Sell | Each piece is a flat 1,000‑coin payout; fabric is cheaper and easier to find. |
| Mid game, rushing benches or labs | Recycle outside raids | 16 fabric per item quickly covers bulk fabric requirements for multiple upgrades. |
| End game, capped on coins but low on fabric | Recycle in bulk | Coin loss is irrelevant; fabric throughput is the bottleneck for late projects and crafting. |
| In raid, slot pressure, no safe extract yet | Salvage | Free space while still walking away with nine fabric instead of zero. |
One extra wrinkle: a stack of three weighs 3 kg and sells for 3,000 coins. That’s a strong coins‑per‑weight ratio compared with many other recyclables. If you’re running a money‑focused route, it’s often safer to treat Thermo Lining as high‑value cash loot rather than as pre‑fabric until you’re back in the hideout.
Practical farming patterns for Thermo Lining
The game already leans you toward ARC‑heavy fights if you’re progressing through weapon and gadget unlocks. Thermo Lining fits neatly into that loop, but targeted farming can still shave off a lot of runs.
| Pattern | What to do |
|---|---|
| Tech‑only sweeps | Chain runs that stay almost entirely within Spaceport reactors, Dam control structures, and Blue Gate data centers instead of roaming open terrain. |
| ARC enemy focus | Prioritize routes with dense ARC spawns (Pop, Queen, Sentinel groups) and clear them fully before moving on. |
| Crate triage | Open tech crates, server cabinets, and industrial lockers first, then only dip into generic loot if you still have space. |
| Safe Pocket usage | Once you pick up one or two pieces early in a run, drop at least one into Safe Pockets so you lock in either the 1,000‑coin payout or the 16‑fabric recycle later. |
Gear that boosts perception helps here, not because it changes the drop tables, but because it cuts down the time spent hunting for the right containers. The faster you can visually scan tech crates and terminals, the more loops you can run through the same high‑yield districts.
Thermo Lining is not flashy, but it is efficient. It compresses a large amount of basic cloth into a rare, ARC‑flavored shard that fits three to a slot, sells well, and keeps the fabric pipeline running for as long as you’re willing to clear tech corridors and knock down robots. Treat it as a flexible switch between coins and components, and route your farming around the maps where ARC infrastructure is thickest.
