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To upgrade your Workshop in ARC Raiders, use the six upgradeable stations—Gunsmith, Gear Bench, Medical Lab, Explosives Station, Utility Station and Refiner—and pay each station’s separate material bill for levels 1, 2 and 3. The basic Workbench is free and is not listed with an upgrade path. Because requirements can change with patches, treat the cost table below as a planning reference and confirm the numbers on your station screen before committing scarce items.
The most efficient order is not universal. Upgrade the station that produces the blueprint or equipment you are pursuing; choose the Refiner earlier if your plan depends on advanced components. Keep rare ARC parts and enemy-specific drops assigned to a station rather than spending them opportunistically.
What can be upgraded in the Workshop?
The original Workshop layout has one free basic Workbench and six stations with three listed upgrade levels. Each level is a separate requirement: reaching level 1 does not automatically cover level 2 or level 3. The ARC Raiders Hub Workshop reference lists the following progression.
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| Station | Level 1 requirement | Level 2 requirement | Level 3 requirement | What to use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gunsmith | 20 Metal Parts 30 Rubber Parts |
3 Rusted Tools 5 Mechanical Components 8 Wasp Drivers |
3 Rusted Gears 5 Advanced Mechanical Components 4 Sentinel Firing Cores |
Weapon-related crafting and progression |
| Gear Bench | 25 Plastic Parts 30 Fabric |
3 Power Cables 5 Electrical Components 5 Hornet Drivers |
3 Industrial Batteries 5 Advanced Electrical Components 6 Bastion Cells |
Gear and equipment crafting |
| Medical Lab | 50 Fabric 6 ARC Alloy |
2 Cracked Bioscanners 5 Durable Cloth 8 Tick Pods |
3 Rusted Shut Medical Kits 8 Antiseptics 5 Surveyor Vaults |
Medical and healing items |
| Explosives Station | 50 Chemicals 6 ARC Alloy |
3 Synthesized Fuel 5 Crude Explosives 5 Pop Triggers |
3 Laboratory Reagents 5 Explosive Compounds 3 Rocketeer Drivers |
Explosive equipment and consumables |
| Utility Station | 50 Plastic Parts 6 ARC Alloy |
2 Damaged Heat Sinks 5 Electrical Components 6 Snitch Scanners |
3 Fried Motherboards 5 Advanced Electrical Components 4 Leaper Pulse Units |
Utility equipment and tools |
| Refiner | 60 Metal Parts 5 ARC Powercells |
3 Toasters 5 ARC Motion Cores 8 Fireball Burners |
3 Motors 10 ARC Circuitry 6 Bombardier Cells |
Converting materials into advanced components |
These are third-party reference values, not a guarantee that every live build uses the same numbers. A balance patch, event, platform build or future progression change can alter a requirement. Use the table to sort your stash, then use the in-game station panel as the final authority.
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Station-by-station costs and what they mean
Gunsmith
The Gunsmith starts with a level 1 bill of 20 Metal Parts and 30 Rubber Parts. Level 2 shifts to three Rusted Tools, five Mechanical Components and eight Wasp Drivers. Level 3 requires three Rusted Gears, five Advanced Mechanical Components and four Sentinel Firing Cores.
That progression moves from common industrial materials to components and named ARC-machine drops. If your current blueprint plan is weapon-focused, reserve the drivers, gears and cores for the Gunsmith instead of selling or dismantling them. Level 3 is especially easy to delay accidentally because it mixes an advanced component with enemy-specific items; check all three lines before a long farming run.
Gear Bench
Level 1 costs 25 Plastic Parts and 30 Fabric. Level 2 costs three Power Cables, five Electrical Components and five Hornet Drivers. Level 3 costs three Industrial Batteries, five Advanced Electrical Components and six Bastion Cells.
Plastic and Fabric are also used by other stations, so a player trying to improve both gear and medical capacity should track them separately. The two electrical-component tiers and the Hornet and Bastion drops make the later levels a different collection task from level 1. Do not assume that stockpiling Fabric alone leaves you close to level 3.
Medical Lab
The Medical Lab requires 50 Fabric and six ARC Alloy for level 1. Level 2 requires two Cracked Bioscanners, five Durable Cloth and eight Tick Pods. Level 3 requires three Rusted Shut Medical Kits, eight Antiseptics and five Surveyor Vaults.
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This is a sensible early target for players whose expeditions regularly end because healing supplies run out. It is not automatically the best first station for every account: the level 1 Fabric and ARC Alloy may be more valuable to a different blueprint, and the level 3 Surveyor Vault requirement can take a dedicated collection plan.
Explosives Station
Level 1 requires 50 Chemicals and six ARC Alloy. Level 2 requires three Synthesized Fuel, five Crude Explosives and five Pop Triggers. Level 3 requires three Laboratory Reagents, five Explosive Compounds and three Rocketeer Drivers.
Upgrade this station when explosives are part of your normal loadout or a target blueprint specifically calls for its recipes. Its early ARC Alloy cost competes with the Medical Lab and Utility Station, while the later Rocketeer Drivers are a separate bottleneck. Spending that Alloy on several level 1 stations at once can leave you unable to reach the one that supports your immediate build.
Utility Station
Level 1 requires 50 Plastic Parts and six ARC Alloy. Level 2 requires two Damaged Heat Sinks, five Electrical Components and six Snitch Scanners. Level 3 requires three Fried Motherboards, five Advanced Electrical Components and four Leaper Pulse Units.
Utility progression competes directly with the Gear Bench for Plastic Parts and electrical components. If you are collecting toward both, mark each item in your storage plan; otherwise, a few upgrades can consume the shared materials needed for the other station’s next level.
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Refiner
Level 1 requires 60 Metal Parts and five ARC Powercells. Level 2 requires three Toasters, five ARC Motion Cores and eight Fireball Burners. Level 3 requires three Motors, 10 ARC Circuitry and six Bombardier Cells.
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The Refiner converts materials into advanced components. That role can make it a high-value investment when your blueprints repeatedly ask for refined parts, but it does not make the Refiner a mandatory first upgrade for every player. The useful question is whether its conversion output removes a bottleneck in the recipe you are pursuing. If your next goal uses direct drops instead, another station may deliver a more immediate benefit.
How to choose an upgrade order
No cited source establishes a universal best order. The practical approach is to rank stations against your own blueprints, equipment and available stash. Use this decision sequence before spending anything.
- Write down the next item you actually want to craft. Identify the station that owns that recipe. If you are choosing between several projects, list the next level at each station rather than treating the Workshop as one shared upgrade bar.
- Check the complete next-level bill. A station is not ready because you have its common parts. Count every named component, ARC item and machine drop shown for that level.
- Protect shared materials. Metal Parts appear in both the Gunsmith and Refiner level 1 costs; Plastic Parts appear in the Gear Bench and Utility Station; Fabric appears in the Gear Bench and Medical Lab; ARC Alloy appears in the Medical Lab, Explosives Station and Utility Station. Reserve these against a chosen plan before making side upgrades.
- Compare the rarest missing item. If one station needs a single obtainable common resource and another needs several rare drivers or cores, the first may provide a faster power increase. Conversely, a station whose output is essential to your build can justify the longer hunt.
- Re-evaluate after each level. Level 2 and level 3 use different item families. Reaching level 1 does not prove that the same station remains your best next investment.
When the Refiner deserves priority
Prioritize the Refiner when an advanced component is the limiting ingredient in several near-term recipes and the Refiner can produce that component from materials you can reliably recover. Keep it lower on the list when your immediate blueprint requires named ARC drops that refining will not replace. The distinction is between solving a conversion bottleneck and solving an acquisition bottleneck.
When a specialist station deserves priority
A specialist station usually wins when its recipes solve a repeated problem: medical items for survival, weapons for your main damage setup, gear for a loadout change, explosives for a particular combat approach or utilities for a specific objective. Upgrade the station that changes what you can do on your next expeditions, not simply the one for which you happen to have a few materials today.
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A practical upgrade workflow
Station names and button prompts can vary by platform and patch, but the resource-checking process is consistent. Use this checklist whenever you are ready to commit an upgrade.
- Return to the Workshop. Open the Workshop interface rather than relying on a remembered cost from an older guide.
- Select the station and the next level. Read the requirement panel for that specific level. Do not use the level 1 list as a proxy for level 2 or level 3.
- Compare carried and stored quantities. Separate common parts, processed components, ARC materials and named machine drops. The category matters because each tends to be gathered differently.
- Lock the missing-item list. Record the exact shortfall, including singular items such as one additional core or scanner. This prevents a successful run from being wasted on the wrong drop.
- Gather only what closes the list. Keep unrelated materials if they are reserved for another station. If storage is tight, avoid discarding a rare item merely because it is not needed for the current level.
- Confirm the upgrade in the station screen. Verify that the level changed and that the expected recipes or capabilities are now available before leaving the Workshop.
- Update your plan. Recheck the next level after the upgrade. Requirements change category, and the next bottleneck may no longer be the same material.
How to manage the material checklist
Separate common parts from named drops
Metal Parts, Rubber Parts, Plastic Parts, Fabric and Chemicals are broad resource categories. Tools, cables, batteries, bioscanners, drivers, cells, scanners and cores are more specific. Keep two lists: one for quantities that can be topped up gradually and one for items that must be deliberately retained when they appear. This prevents the common-resource total from hiding a rare-item shortage.
Do not trust an old aggregate total
A November 2025 PC Gamer checklist reported 80 Metal Parts, 80 Rubber Parts and 80 Fabric among the aggregate needs for the station upgrades it covered. Those figures are historical planning numbers for that article’s scope, not a verified total for the current game. They also do not represent every item in the table above and predate the later Outpost progression described for the October 8, 2026 Frozen Trail 2.0 update. Use the PC Gamer checklist only as historical context, then calculate your own total from the current station panels.
Farm with a target, not a general wish list
Guide titles often promise where to find upgrade items, but locations and drop tables can change. The Acer Corner guide is useful as an additional item-finding reference, while the live game remains the authority for current availability. Before an expedition, select one or two missing items, check their in-game descriptions and plan the run around those targets. A broad “collect everything” run fills storage quickly without guaranteeing the driver, core or vault you actually need.
Common upgrade mistakes and fixes
Spending shared materials on the wrong station
Symptom: You can afford a level 1 upgrade but are short on the same basic resource for your intended station. Fix: Compare all pending level 1 bills first. Reserve the shared material for the station that supports your immediate blueprint, then spend the remainder.
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Assuming level 3 is just more of level 2
Symptom: You have Mechanical Components or Electrical Components but cannot start level 3. Fix: Read the level 3 row separately. Advanced components and named drops replace many of the level 2 items.
Discarding rare drops because they are not needed today
Symptom: A later upgrade repeatedly sends you back for a driver, core, cell or vault you previously found. Fix: Keep a station-labeled reserve for rare items. Only release it when the station is upgraded or your plan has changed.
Following a guide after a patch
Symptom: The quantities in a web checklist do not match the station screen. Fix: Use the in-game requirement as authoritative, note the patch or event version, and rebuild your checklist. Third-party tables are snapshots, not permanent contracts.
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Symptom: You are searching the six Workshop stations for a Research Station level or weapon-amplification research. Fix: Treat those as a separate progression layer, described below.
How the Outpost and Research Station fit in
A separate guide covering the October 8, 2026 Frozen Trail 2.0 update describes an Outpost unlocked by completing the Sheltered Retreat project. It also describes a Research Station whose levels are tied to Outpost levels and which unlocks weapon-amplification research. The guide is third-party, and no official patch-note page was available to verify those details at the time of publication; confirm the unlock conditions and costs in your current game.
Do not add the Research Station to the six-station Workshop checklist. The original Workshop table covers Gunsmith, Gear Bench, Medical Lab, Explosives Station, Utility Station and Refiner. Outpost and Research Station progress may require a different set of projects or materials, so track them in a separate column in your notes. The TheArcRaiders.com workshop guide provides the dated Outpost and Research Station context, but its figures should also be checked against the live build.
A compact planning template
For each station, keep a line with the current level, the next target level, the complete requirement list and the number still missing. A simple format is:
- Station and target: for example, Utility Station, level 2.
- Common materials: Plastic Parts, Fabric, Chemicals or Metal Parts, with current and required quantities.
- Processed components: Electrical Components, Mechanical Components or their advanced versions.
- Named drops: drivers, cells, scanners, cores, vaults and other specific items.
- Decision: upgrade now, farm one missing item, or defer in favor of another station.
When a patch changes a number, replace the affected line rather than carrying forward an old total. This keeps your plan useful without pretending that a dated aggregate remains current.
Quick Recap
Workshop upgrade checklist
- Confirm which station owns the recipe you want next.
- Read the exact next-level requirement in-game.
- Reserve shared Metal Parts, Plastic Parts, Fabric, ARC Alloy and other common resources.
- Keep named drivers, cores, cells, scanners and vaults until you know they are surplus.
- Choose the Refiner early only when advanced components are your actual bottleneck.
- Recalculate after every station level because the item categories change.
- Keep Outpost and Research Station objectives separate from the six original Workshop stations.
- Recheck all costs after an update, especially around Frozen Trail 2.0 content.
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