Tick Pods look like a simple crafting material in Arc Raiders, but they gate an early hideout upgrade and can be surprisingly annoying to track down if you do not know where Ticks spawn. The good news: once you understand where these spider-like ARCs live and how the game signals their presence, farming Tick Pods becomes straightforward.
What Ticks and Tick Pods are in Arc Raiders
Ticks are small, spider-style ARC units that cling to walls and ceilings and then hurl themselves at your face. They are lightly armored, have low health, and attack by leaping, latching on, and slowly draining your HP and shield until you shake them off by holding the interact button.
Each Tick can drop:
| Enemy | Threat level | Armor | Main attack | Typical loot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tick | Low | No plating | Jump onto face, drain HP/shield | ARC Alloy, Tick Pod |
The Tick Pod is the explosive core recovered from a destroyed Tick. It is classified as an uncommon, recyclable material. One Tick Pod can be recycled into ARC Alloy and Chemicals and is also part of the cost to upgrade the Medical Lab from level 1 to level 2 in your workshop.
| Item | Rarity | Category | Weight | Stack size | Sell price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tick Pod | Uncommon | Recyclable material | ~0.25–0.5 kg (per unit, depends on listing) | 3–5 (depends on listing) | 640 Raider Coins |
Recycling a Tick Pod yields roughly two ARC Alloy and two Chemicals, or one ARC Alloy if salvaged instead of fully recycled.
Where Ticks spawn most often
Ticks are heavily biased toward indoor spaces. If you are roaming open fields looking for them, you will rarely see any. Their behaviour is tailored to close, cluttered interiors where ceilings, ducts, and doorways give them ambush angles.
| Environment type | Tick presence | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open outdoor areas | Rare | Roaming outside is inefficient for Tick Pods. |
| Small indoor buildings (Medium loot, yellow) | Common | Check rooms, corners, stairwells, and ceilings. |
| Large indoor complexes (High loot, red) | Very common | Best chance for multiple Ticks in a single run. |
Inside buildings, Ticks typically behave in one of two ways:
- Wandering on floors, making light metallic clanking sounds as they scuttle around.
- Attached to walls or ceilings, waiting to drop or jump at you when you move underneath.
Because of this, the most efficient Tick Pod routes focus on clusters of indoor locations with medium (yellow) or high (red) loot value.
Best locations to farm Tick Pods
Ticks appear across the Rust Belt, but some maps and sub-areas consistently deliver more encounters per raid. The goal is to chain indoor fights together: go from building to building, clearing each floor and ceiling, instead of sprinting across open terrain.
| Map | Area | Why it is good for Ticks |
|---|---|---|
| Dam Battlegrounds | Hydroponic Dome Complex | Large indoor facility marked with high (red) loot value; dense ARC presence with frequent Ticks. |
| Dam Battlegrounds | Testing Annex | Compact multi-floor interior with many loot spawns and Tick-bearing ARC drones. |
| Spaceport | Underground tunnels and “space ground” areas | Extended tunnel networks capable of spawning up to ~10 Ticks in a single pass. |
| Buried City | Southeastern attics | Many accessible attics, often with one or two Ticks each; strong for concentrated farming. |
On any of these maps, prioritize any POI that is:
- Mostly or entirely indoors.
- Marked with yellow (medium) or red (high) loot value.
- Layered vertically (multi-story buildings, attics, tunnels) so Ticks can cling to overhead surfaces.
How to identify and safely fight Ticks
Ticks are designed to pressure you in tight spaces, but mechanically, they are fragile and easy to kill once spotted.
| Signal | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Metallic clanking or shuffling | Tick moving on floor, wall, or ceiling nearby | Slow down, scan corners and ceilings before entering the next room. |
| Sudden robotic rustle then a leap | Tick entering its lunge animation | Backpedal or duck behind cover and shoot while it is mid-air. |
| Tick latched onto your face | HP and shield begin draining | Hold the interact button to rip it off; then finish it on the ground. |
Because Ticks are unarmored and have very low health, any weapon will kill them in a shot or two. They can even be destroyed with the basic tool. However, they often appear in small clusters, sometimes backed up by other machines such as Fireballs or turrets in the same building.
Practical loadout choices for Tick runs include:
- A shotgun or fast-firing rifle for close-range clearing in hallways and stairwells.
- A movable shield to block lunges and prevent a Tick from latching on while you clear a doorway.
- Light armor and enough healing to handle chip damage during surprise attacks.
How to get the Tick Pod after a kill
Once a Tick is dead, the process to secure its pod is simple but easy to rush past in a hectic fight.
| Step | Action | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Locate the body | Look for the small spider-like chassis on the floor or near the wall where it died. |
| 2 | Interact to loot | Use the standard loot key on the corpse to collect the Tick Pod and any ARC Alloy. |
| 3 | Repeat across the room | Check each body; Tick Pods are effectively guaranteed from Tick units, but you must actually loot them. |
In practice, killing a Tick reliably produces a Tick Pod as long as you loot the corpse. When they attack in groups, it is easy to move on after the fight and leave one or two bodies unlooted; when farming for a specific quest or for a Medical Lab upgrade, sweep each room carefully before moving on.
Using Tick Pods for upgrades and crafting
Tick Pods are most important early on when you start investing in your hideout. One of the earliest key uses is upgrading the Medical Lab from level 1 to level 2.
| Upgrade | Workshop level | Required items |
|---|---|---|
| Medical Lab 1 → 2 | Medical Lab | 2× Cracked Bioscanner, 5× Durable Cloth, 8× Tick Pod |
Beyond upgrades, Tick Pods are a flexible source of basic materials:
| Action | Input | Output | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recycle | 1× Tick Pod | 2× ARC Alloy, 2× Chemicals | Best when you need both crafting metals and chemical components. |
| Salvage | 1× Tick Pod | 1× ARC Alloy | Alternative if you only care about ARC Alloy or do not have recycling unlocked. |
Because Tick Pods sell for a solid amount of Raider Coins and can be turned into foundational materials, regular Tick runs double as general resource farming, not just quest completion.
Skills and augments that help with Tick farming
Some character skills and augments make Tick Pod runs smoother, either by keeping you alive in cramped spaces or by improving your haul.
| Type | Name | Benefit for Tick farming |
|---|---|---|
| Skill | Marathon Runner | Improves mobility for repositioning, retreating, or chaining buildings in a route. |
| Skill | Silent Scavenger | Helps you move and loot quietly in interiors, reducing the chances of being overwhelmed. |
| Skill | Looter’s Luck | Increases the likelihood of better loot in the interiors you are already targeting for Ticks. |
| Skill | Used to the Weight | Lets you carry more items out, useful when Tick Pods are just part of a broader loot run. |
| Augment | Loot level 2 augment (auto-disengage) | Automatically removes Ticks after a short delay if they latch on, reducing panic moments. |
When the goal is to collect multiple Tick Pods in one raid, treat the run like a compact PvE dungeon clear: light, mobile loadout, skills focused on movement and looting, and enough sustain to survive if a pack of Ticks gets the jump on you.
Once you stop looking for Ticks in open ground and start focusing on the game’s dense indoor spaces—especially high-value complexes, tunnels, and attics—the Tick Pod bottleneck disappears. A single focused run through places like the Hydroponic Dome Complex, Spaceport tunnels, or Buried City attics can give you enough pods to finish early quests, unlock Medical Lab 2, and still have a few left over to recycle into ARC Alloy and Chemicals.
