The Powered Descender is a movement gadget added with the Riven Tides update for ARC Raiders. It lets you drop from high points without taking fall damage, which matters a lot on the vertical layouts in the new region. The catch is that the gadget itself isn't lootable as a finished item. You have to find its blueprint, extract with it, learn it at Speranza, and then craft the device yourself.
Quick answer: Run Hotel Panorama Azzurro, south of Azzurro Beach in Riven Tides, and sweep the ground floor lockers, drawers, and any breachable containers along the beach approach.
Where the Powered Descender blueprint spawns
The most consistent spot is Hotel Panorama Azzurro in the Mulatierra Hill area of the Riven Tides map. Drop in, head south of Azzurro Beach, and clear the building from the ground floor up. Red lockers, dressers, and side rooms on the lower level have produced the blueprint repeatedly.
The same building also has a chance to spawn the Velocity Ship Model used for the Miniature Voyages event, so a single sweep can pull double duty.
Beyond the hotel itself, breachable containers along the beach stretch leading up to the building have also produced the blueprint. Bring a breach charge if you have one. The Customs House cluster nearby is worth a quick pass on the way out, but the hotel is the anchor location.
How to extract with it safely
Step 1: Put the blueprint into your safe pocket the moment it appears in your inventory. Anything not in the safe pocket drops on death and can be looted by another raider.
Step 2: Move to the closest extraction terminal. Don't engage fights you don't have to. The blueprint is the run, not the kill count.
Step 3: Once back in Speranza, open your inventory, select the Powered Descender Blueprint, and choose Learn & Consume. The recipe is then permanently attached to your account and the physical blueprint is destroyed.
Crafting the Powered Descender
Learning the blueprint is only half the job. Crafting the gadget requires a specific workshop level and two components, one of which has to be built separately.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Crafting station | Utility Station III |
| Power Rod | 1x — crafted at the Refiner Workstation |
| Turbine Compressor | 1x — harvested from Arc Turbines in the Riven Tides region |
If your Utility Station is still at level II, you need to upgrade it before the recipe will appear as craftable.
| Utility Station III upgrade | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Fried Motherboard | 5 |
| Advanced Electrical Components | 3 |
| Bison Driver | 3 |
Turbine Compressors only come from Arc Turbines, the spinning machines scattered around Riven Tides. Take the turbine down with sustained fire or explosives, then loot the wreck. Power Rods are a refiner craft, so plan a separate Speranza visit if you don't already have one stocked.
How to confirm it worked
After selecting Learn & Consume, the blueprint disappears from your inventory and the Powered Descender entry shows a checkmark in the crafting menu under utilities. If you have all the materials and a Utility Station III, the Craft button becomes active. If it stays greyed out, the cause is almost always one of three things: missing Power Rod, missing Turbine Compressor, or station still at level II.
Tips that actually shorten the grind
Keep loadouts cheap on blueprint runs. A free or budget kit means you don't lose much when another squad rolls through the hotel, and the blueprint goes into the safe pocket either way. Night Raid conditions raise blueprint drop chances across all maps, so if you see Riven Tides under Night Raid, that is the window to push the hotel route hard.
Listen for the ticking sound near hidden raider caches on the approach. They aren't guaranteed to roll the Powered Descender, but they pull from a higher loot tier than open-world containers, and the blueprint sits in the general drop pool that those caches can roll.
Once crafted, the gadget pays for itself fast on Riven Tides. The map's hotel complexes, cliff lines, and harbor structures are built around vertical drops, and the descender removes the fall damage punishment that otherwise forces you to take the long way down.