The Rotary Encoder is a rare Exodus item in ARC Raiders that you must secure in Stella Montis to move the With a View quest forward. It also has a one-off interaction in Assembly’s control rooms before you can focus on finding an Ion Sputter.
Quick answer: The Rotary Encoder only spawns as Exodus loot on Stella Montis, most reliably inside containers in Assembly Workshops, Medical Research/Medical, Business Center, and the Lobby security office. Load into Stella Montis, rush one of these Exodus zones, open drawers, cabinets, and tool tables until you find a Rotary Encoder, put it in your Safe Pocket, then take it to any Assembly control room and use it on the yellow lever next to the windows.
Rotary Encoder state: what it is and where it can appear
The Rotary Encoder is classified as an Exodus loot item tied to Stella Montis. It does not spawn on any other map. Within Stella Montis, it can appear in any Exodus region, but several zones have the highest concentration of suitable containers and are therefore the best places to search.
| Stella Montis area | Loot tier / role | Why it’s good for Rotary Encoders |
|---|---|---|
| Assembly / Assembly Workshops | Exodus | Dense drawers, tool tables, and crates; also houses the control rooms you must use later. |
| Medical / Medical Research | Exodus | Multiple floors with white drawers and cabinets that can roll Rotary Encoders. |
| Business Center | Exodus | High-value office loot with many searchable containers. |
| Lobby (security office) | Exodus pocket | Smaller area but specifically called out for Rotary Encoders and Ion Sputters. |
Across these regions, Rotary Encoders sit in the same pool as other Exodus materials, which means two important things are always true:
- Spawns are random within the Exodus pool; no single drawer or table is guaranteed.
- Other players looting the same areas can remove the item before you arrive.
Within rooms, Rotary Encoders most often sit inside white drawers, metal cabinets, and colored tool table drawers (white, yellow, or red) rather than on open surfaces. Any of these container types can roll an Exodus item, including a Rotary Encoder.
How to secure a Rotary Encoder reliably
Step 1: Queue specifically into Stella Montis. The Rotary Encoder is tied to this facility and does not appear on Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, Buried City, or Blue Gate.
Step 2: On spawn, immediately check your map and pick the closest high-yield Exodus zone. Prioritize Assembly Workshops, Medical, Business Center, or the Lobby security office; the shorter your travel time, the less likely other raiders have already stripped the containers.
Step 3: Move through that zone methodically, opening every suitable container. Focus on:
- White drawer stacks in labs, offices, and medical rooms.
- Cabinets along walls in Medical and Business Center.
- Tool tables and workbenches with pull-out drawers in Assembly Workshops (inside and outside the rooms).
Step 4: As soon as you see a Rotary Encoder in the loot window, move it into your Safe Pocket before doing anything else. The With a View objectives do not have to be finished in one raid, so once it’s in a Safe Pocket, you keep it even if you die later in the round.
Step 5: If you spawned far from every Exodus zone or arrive to find every drawer already looted, it is often faster to extract or surrender and requeue until you spawn closer to Assembly, Medical, Business Center, or Lobby.
Common failure reasons at this stage are simple but harsh: other players reach the Exodus rooms first and clear the containers, or you die carrying the Encoder in your regular inventory before it reaches a Safe Pocket. Both are fully avoided as soon as it sits in that protected slot.
How to use the Rotary Encoder in Assembly control rooms
Once you own a Rotary Encoder, With a View requires one interaction in Assembly’s control rooms before the quest can advance to the Ion Sputter stage.
Step 1: Load into Stella Montis with the Rotary Encoder either in your inventory or already in a Safe Pocket. If it’s in the Safe Pocket, you still satisfy the condition for the interaction as long as it is on your character.
Step 2: Travel to the Assembly Workshops in the north of Stella Montis’ upper level. Look for the glass-fronted control rooms with windows overlooking the assembly lines and banks of terminals inside.
Step 3: Enter any of these control rooms. Each valid room has a distinct yellow-marked lever mounted near the windows and terminal banks.
Step 4: Stand next to the yellow lever and interact with it while carrying the Rotary Encoder. The quest step “Visit any of the control rooms near the assembly line and use the Rotary Encoder” completes when this interaction succeeds.
Step 5: Immediately interact with the nearby computer console in the same room. This is described in the quest text as “Interact with the nearby computer to identify the correct parts” or “activate the server switch,” and it finishes the Rotary Encoder segment of With a View.
Once the console has been used and the objective updates, the game no longer requires the Rotary Encoder for further steps. You can:
- Keep it in case another quest stage later references it.
- Hand it to a friend so they can repeat the same lever and console interaction for their own With a View progress.
- Recycle or sell it, as it has no crafting recipes attached in its current state.
You know this part has worked when the quest tracker switches from the control room objective to the Ion Sputter delivery, and the on-screen task text changes accordingly.
How the Rotary Encoder behaves as a system
The Rotary Encoder follows the same rules as other Exodus materials on Stella Montis, with a few quest-specific behaviors layered on top.
- Map constraint. It only spawns on Stella Montis and only within regions flagged as Exodus zones (Assembly, Medical, Business Center, Lobby security office, and similar pockets). Other maps cannot roll it.
- Container constraint. It appears inside standard lootable containers in those regions, primarily drawers, cabinets, and tool tables, not as loose ground loot.
- Rarity behavior. It occupies a rare slot in the Exodus pool. A container that could roll a Rotary Encoder can also roll other Exodus items or nothing notable at all.
- Quest consumption. The lever and console interactions in Assembly check only for the item’s presence on your character at the moment of use. The quest does not permanently consume or destroy the Rotary Encoder.
- Safe Pocket interaction. Placing the Rotary Encoder in a Safe Pocket removes the risk of losing it on death and does not interfere with its ability to satisfy quest checks.
When any of these rules are violated, expected behaviors fail in predictable ways. Being on a different map means no Rotary Encoder ever appears. Searching non-Exodus side rooms in Stella Montis yields only lower-tier loot. Heading into Assembly without the item on your character prevents the lever from progressing the quest.
Once you understand these constraints, the Rotary Encoder becomes a one-time gate rather than an ongoing bottleneck. Secure it in one of the identified regions, protect it in a Safe Pocket, use it once in any Assembly control room, and With a View moves on to the Ion Sputter requirement.
