The Venator is a rare semi-automatic pistol in ARC Raiders that fires two shots with each trigger pull, uses medium ammo, and offers respectable ARC armor penetration. It shines as a close‑range finisher and as a backup when your primary weapon runs dry. Unlocking it requires finding and learning the Venator Blueprint, which sits in the “rare” tier of the game’s loot table and can take a long time to appear if you wander without a plan.
Venator doesn’t have a fixed, guaranteed spawn, but it does have a set of containers and areas where it shows up more often. Those locations are spread across Dam Battlegrounds, Blue Gate, and Buried City, with late‑game events like Harvesters and Security Lockers offering extra chances.
How Venator blueprints drop in ARC Raiders
Venator is part of the general rare blueprint pool. That means it can appear anywhere rare blueprints can drop, but only from specific container types and in certain mission conditions:
| Mechanic | Impact on Venator drops |
|---|---|
| Container type | Highest chances in weapon crates and raider caches; can also appear in other high‑tier containers. |
| Blueprint rarity | Venator is a rare blueprint, sharing its pool with weapons like Torrente and other high‑tier mods. |
| Night missions | Night raids use loot tables that significantly increase rare blueprint spawn rates across all containers. |
| Locked / breachable rooms | Containers behind locked doors and in breachable rooms have noticeably higher odds of holding blueprints. |
| Security Lockers | Purple‑tier lockers unlocked via the Survive tree have the best blueprint drop rates overall. |
| Harvester events | Event rewards heavily favor rare and legendary blueprints, and Venator can appear among them. |
Once you extract with the Venator Blueprint, move it into your safe pocket if possible; blueprints in the safe pocket are protected even if you die before extraction. At Sparanza, learn the blueprint from your inventory to unlock permanent crafting at a Level 3 Gunsmith. Duplicate Venator blueprints can be sold for credits.
Dam Battlegrounds Venator locations
Dam Battlegrounds is the most efficient place to chase Venator for most players. The map packs a high density of weapon crates, raider caches, and Security Lockers into a relatively compact area, which makes route‑based farming practical.
Dam Battlegrounds weapon crates and cache circuit
The dam has more than 20 weapon crate locations that can be linked into one continuous loop. Venator can drop in any of these, but a few clusters stand out:
| Dam area | What to loot | Why it’s good for Venator |
|---|---|---|
| Swamp outposts (south) | Raider caches, weapon crates around the swamp extract zone. | Multiple reports of Venator dropping from raider caches in this region; easy to chain several crates. |
| Control Tower (top floor) | Weapon crates on higher levels. | High‑tier weapon loot with fewer casual players climbing all the way up. |
| Highway gap and southern compounds | Weapon crates and caches in roadside outposts. | Good density, quick to sweep if you spawn nearby during a night raid. |
| Formicai Outpost (northeast) | Two crate spawns inside the tower, including a weapon crate. | Low‑risk, isolated spot; high‑tier crate pool with fewer player contests. |
A typical run strings together the swamp caches, nearby roadside outposts, and Control Tower before rotating toward Formicai Outpost if time allows. The goal is to open as many weapon crates and raider caches as possible in a single deployment, then extract as soon as you land a rare blueprint you care about.
Dam Battlegrounds also hides several Security Lockers in the main dam structure, generator building, outer perimeter, and underground tunnels. These lockers require the Security Breach perk in the Survive tree (around level 36) but have the highest overall blueprint drop rate in the game, which includes Venator.
Blue Gate Venator locations
Blue Gate is a popular blueprint farming map, but Venator is not tied to a specific room or crate here. It can emerge from the same weapon crates and high‑tier containers you already loot, and results vary sharply between players.
Players who spend dozens of hours only on Blue Gate sometimes never see Venator, while others report finding it in a weapon cache around the spaceport or launch towers. That’s simply how the rare blueprint RNG behaves.
Blue Gate weapon crate hotspots
| Blue Gate area | What to loot | Notes for Venator runs |
|---|---|---|
| Headhouse underground | Two or more weapon crates, plus general high‑tier loot. | One of the densest clusters of weapon crates on the map; good first stop if you spawn nearby. |
| Reinforced Reception tunnels | Weapon and utility crates reachable via a zipline from the building. | Fast access to multiple crates; meshes well with a Headhouse route. |
| Spaceport / launch towers (northeast) | Weapon caches in the towers and surrounding structures. | Reported Venator drops from a top‑right tower cache; expect competition from other players. |
| Security Lockers (Central Command, radar, depot, maintenance) | Purple‑tier lockers near weapon caches and behind locked doors. | Best pure blueprint odds on the map; Venator can appear as part of the rare pool. |
There is no confirmed high‑spawn “Venator room” on Blue Gate. The most efficient approach is to:
- Queue into Blue Gate night raids when possible.
- Sprint Headhouse → Reinforced Reception → nearby locker clusters if you have a Security Breach.
- Rotate to the spaceport/launch towers when your spawn favors the northeast side.
Because blueprints are shared across the player base, you can also pick Venator up from other raiders’ corpses if they haven’t placed it in their safe pocket. Killing low‑gear (“free loadout”) players is especially rewarding here, since they have no protected inventory slot.
Buried City Venator locations
Buried City offers the most targeted Venator farm: the hospital. This is as close as ARC Raiders gets to a semi‑reliable Venator drop location, though it is still governed by RNG.
Buried City Hospital route
The hospital sits near the center of Buried City, right next to the Library. Inside, a locked room has elevated odds for several rare blueprints, including Venator, provided you can open it.
| Step | Action | Purpose for Venator |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Acquire the Buried City Hospital Key. | Required to unlock the hospital’s rare loot room where Venator often spawns. |
| 2 | Farm Ruby Residence on Dam Battlegrounds. | Desks, lockers, and containers here frequently hold the Hospital Key and other keys. |
| 3 | Alternatively, check Research and Administration in Buried City. | Another location where the Hospital Key can appear in lockers and desks. |
| 4 | Return to Buried City Hospital and unlock the door. | Opens access to the high‑tier loot room. |
| 5 | Loot all containers, especially the bag just left of the entrance. | That bag is a frequent spot for rare weapon blueprints, including Venator. |
Even outside the locked room, the hospital is a strong medical and blueprint farm: cabinets, drawers, and red lockers on the upper floors can all spit out rare weapon blueprints alongside medical ones. Still, the locked room is the key part of a focused Venator grind.
Global blueprint systems that help with Venator
Several global systems in ARC Raiders gently tilt the loot table in your favor. Using them consistently significantly shortens the time to a Venator drop.
Night raids
Night missions are the single largest systemic boost to blueprint farming. Rare loot rates in containers are substantially higher at night. That change applies to all maps and container types that can drop Venator:
- Weapon crates
- Grenade crates
- Medical crates
- Raider caches
- Security Lockers
- Red lockers
For Venator runs, prioritize whichever of Dam Battlegrounds, Blue Gate, or Buried City currently hosts a night raid, and run your preferred blueprint route there.
Security Lockers and the Survive tree
Security Lockers sit at the top of the blueprint food chain. They are purple‑tier containers found in guarded or locked areas and can only be opened if you invest into the Security Breach perk in the Survive skill tree, which unlocks around level 36.
| Map | Locker cluster | Why it matters for Venator |
|---|---|---|
| Dam Battlegrounds | Main Dam control rooms, generator building, outer perimeter, underground tunnel locker. | High chance of any rare blueprint, including Venator, plus legendary drops like Equalizer or Jupiter. |
| Blue Gate | Central Command, radar station upper floor, storage depot near weapon caches, locked maintenance bay. | Pairs well with existing Venator routes around Headhouse and Reinforced Reception. |
Once you have Security Breach, any dedicated Venator farming plan should pivot heavily toward locker clusters. Even if Venator takes time to appear, you’ll accumulate a large collection of other rare blueprints in the process.
Harvester events and Surveyor ARCs
Harvester events act as blueprint jackpots. They are limited‑time map events that, when completed, guarantee high‑tier blueprint rewards, with a strong bias toward weapons like Equalizer and Jupiter, but also including rare options such as Venator.
Even failed Harvester attempts still hand out some blueprints, which makes these events the most time‑efficient way to roll the dice on multiple rare weapon drops in a single outing.
Beyond events, Surveyor ARCs—the floating recon drones that wander all maps—have their own blueprint drop chance. They are fragile and low‑effort to kill, so it’s worth shooting down any Surveyor you see while rotating between objective areas. Over time, those incidental kills add a surprising amount of blueprint income, including rare weapon recipes.
Farming patterns for Venator
Putting all of this together, Venator farming is less about a single magic room and more about repeating a few efficient behaviors:
| Pattern | Core idea | How it helps Venator |
|---|---|---|
| Dam cache circuit | Run swamp caches, Control Tower, roadside outposts, and Formicai in a loop on Dam night raids. | Maximizes weapon crates and raider caches per minute; strong anecdotal Venator track record. |
| Buried City hospital key route | Farm Ruby Residence / Research & Admin for the Hospital Key, then repeatedly clear the hospital’s locked room. | Focuses on a single bag and room with unusually high rare weapon blueprint frequency. |
| Blue Gate locker‑plus‑Headhouse run | Spawn near Headhouse or Reinforced Reception, clear underground crates, then pivot to Security Lockers and spaceport towers. | Combines quantity (crates) with quality (lockers and tower caches) on one map. |
| Event and Surveyor overlay | Always detour for Harvester events and kill Surveyors en route to other objectives. | Adds extra blueprint rolls without separate mission commitments. |
Venator sits in a crowded rare loot table, so even well‑planned runs can go dry for many hours. The upside is that every failed Venator attempt still feeds your Workshop with other weapons, mods, and components. Once the pistol finally drops and is learned, crafting it at a Level 3 Gunsmith turns it into a permanent part of your loadout rotation.
