A landed ARC Turbine on three legs at night, a yellow canister visible through the gap in its landing gear
Airborne boss

ARC Turbine

A heavily armored flyer that drifts over the map and only opens up when it lands. Passive until you provoke it, and it never chases you.

Patch 1.44.0Verified 2026-09-05
1
Keep your distance. Beyond about 150 to 200 m, or inside a building, its lightning cannot reach you.
2
Hold fire to land it. Shooting it keeps it in the air, and it barely takes damage up there. Go quiet and out of its sight and it sets down within about 15 to 30 seconds. Blinking blue lights underneath mean go.
3
Hammer the yellow core. The three canisters in the landing-gear gaps take full damage from any ammo. About 10 to 12 seconds, or 4 to 5 shots, then it lifts. Hide and repeat.
How it works
An ARC Turbine in flight launching a projectile that arcs upward
Provoked: one projectile climbs, then splits into three lightning strikes.

The loop

1 · Airborne patrol
Drifts slowly, relocates when it is done with a zone. Passive.You shoot it, get seen, or trip a mine.
2 · Provoked
Fires cluster lightning while staying airborne.Your fire keeps it here. Go quiet and hide to move on.
3 · Landing
A siren, a ring of mines sprayed beneath it, cracks in the plating, then descent to the nearest flat spot on three legs.Touchdown.
4 · Grounded
Landing gear open, canisters exposed. It can still fire from the ground.The window runs out, or you hit it early.
5 · Lifts
Back to the air.Back to 1.

The only thing that moves it through this loop is whether you are shooting it. Nothing else runs on a timer you can see.

Where and when

Arrival
Falls in like a meteor with a thunder-clap you hear across the map, with roughly 18 to 12 minutes left on the raid timer. Not every raid. Usually one, sometimes up to three.
Maps
Riven Tides is home, along the coast by Panorama Azzurro. Reported on every other map except Stella Montis.
Night Raid
Players report more Turbines under Night Raid. Embark has never tied it to a condition, so read it as the general Night Raid ARC boost.

What it does to you

Cluster lightning
One projectile climbs, splits into three, and comes down as delayed strikes on your position. Very high damage plus a stun. One strike breaks a shield and takes about half your health. A second one kills.
Proximity mines
Sprayed in a ring beneath it before it lands, triggering at roughly 10 m. Tripping one wakes it. They cannot be disarmed, but you can shoot them from range to clear a lane.
What it never does
Chase you, follow you, or call other ARC. It is an objective, not a hunter.

How it senses you

Sight
Spots an exposed player inside a wide radius on its own, no shot needed. Out of sight or indoors it stays passive. The exact radius is not published.
Sound
No source says whether gunfire or footsteps wake it. Every documented trigger is damage, being seen, or a mine.
How to take it down
Weak point
The three yellow canisters sit behind the landing-gear gaps and only show while it is on the ground. Airborne, the plating shrugs off almost everything; only the core is worth a bullet.
Armor
The gunmetal plating everywhere else is a hard gate: Energy and Heavy get through, Medium is borderline, Light and shotgun bounce. The exposed core ignores all of that.

Three routes

A

Standoff

Safest, slowest
Jupiter
Jupiter

From outside its reach, or a window, shoot the core through the plating. The Jupiter's rounds pierce ARC armor, so it is the only gun that hurts the Turbine while it is still airborne.

Five-round magazine, slow bolt, a long fight, and the wreck lands far from you.

B

Grounded burst

Mid-range, community pick
Hullcracker
Hullcracker
Equalizer
Equalizer
Bettina
Bettina

Wait for the landing, put the magazine into the core, back off. Hullcracker rounds only detonate on ARC and punch through the plating. Equalizer or Bettina if you lack one.

Needs the window every cycle, so it is loud and takes several landings.

C

Nuke

Fastest, current favourite
Deadline
3× Deadline
Photoelectric Cloak
Photoelectric Cloak
Zipline
Zipline

Shoot the mines to clear a lane. Ride a Zipline in with the Cloak up, jump at a canister and hold the placement key when the prompt appears, ride back out. Two on the canisters reportedly finish it; three placed anywhere near the core did on camera.

You walk into the mine ring and eat the 10 m blast if you linger. Ties up three Epic mines.

No source measures per-gun damage on the core, so these are not ranked. Pick by what you own.

Solo or squad
Solo works on the Standoff route from a window, or the Nuke route with the Cloak. A squad splits it: one holds a sightline from cover and calls the landing, one or two run the core. Nobody shoots while it is airborne.

Staying alive

Cover
Hard cover between strikes and keep moving. Never take two hits.
Photoelectric Cloak
Since patch 1.42.0 the Cloak works against Turbine lightning: cloaked, it loses you even mid-fight and the strikes stop. Slow walk only, so pair it with a Zipline.

Don't

Shoot it in the air
Wasted ammo and durability, and it delays the landing.
Climb it
It burns you, and there is no weak point on top.
Stand in a doorway or window
The lightning reaches through them.
Bring a Wolfpack
The missiles scatter across the plating and miss the core.
Trust a Barricade Kit
It blocked the strikes at launch. A recent video says it no longer does reliably, and no patch note tracks the change.
Use a Leaper as a body block
Leapers jump straight through it. A known issue since 1.26.0.
Worth it?
+700 Destroy+700 Scavenge core+200 Scavenge shell
Turbine Compressor
Turbine Compressor

Epic, 5,000 each, and the Turbine is the only source since 1.36.0. Six to seven per kill reported since the loot buff. Crafts the Powered Descender.

  • ARC Alloy
  • Advanced ARC Powercell
  • ARC Coolant
  • ARC Flex Rubber
  • ARC Motion Core
  • ARC Performance Steel
  • ARC Synthetic Resin
  • ARC Thermo Lining
  • Launcher Ammo
  • Medium Gun Parts
Loot
Embark raised Turbine loot in 1.36.0 after players said it was too low for the effort.
Skip it when
The lobby is PvP-hot, you have none of the three kits, it arrives at the 12-minute edge and you still need to loot and extract, or you only need the trial. The trial scores damage, not kills, so chip it across landings and leave.
What nobody knows yet
Hearing
Whether it reacts to sound at all.
Detection radius
How far away it can pick you up. Guides quote numbers; none are published.
Landing timer
Whether descent also runs on an internal clock, or only on your silence.
Despawn
Whether it ever leaves before the raid ends.
Core multiplier
How much extra the canisters take. Every shot count in a guide is arithmetic, not a measurement.
Compressor count
Six to seven per kill comes from one video.

Verified against patch 1.44.0 on 5 September 2026 from Embark's patch notes and Riven Tides article, arcraiders.wiki, six community guides and one recent video. Re-check after Frozen Trail on 8 October 2026.

All ARC enemies →Damage Turbines trial →