Thursday, October 29, 2026 · Topside Briefing
State of the Surface
Update 2.3.0 a few days in, Week 4 of the Frozen Trials on the clock, and your bench mid-build. The advanced read — no basics, no explainers.
Update 2.3.0 — What Matters at Your Level
- Loot moved deeper. Emperor and Frigate loot is now redistributed by depth: entrance containers pay lower-tier, the value sits in the back half of both encounters. Shallow-loot habits are now just risk with worse pay.
- Emperor Key blueprint drop chance reduced from Redirection pods — partly compensated by a new chance for payloads to yield ARC parts and high-tier ARC loot instead. Your three banked conduits are worth more than they were last week.
- The blueprint pool widened. Dolabra, Bobcat, Equalizer, Jupiter, Tempest and Vulcano can now drop under any major map condition. Jupiter is still a Harvester farm at heart — three power cells, shoot the yellow buttons, loot the pillar — but it is no longer condition-locked.
- Heavy Shield base charge 80 → 90. The quiet balance change of the patch; it's now the default serious shield. Flame Spray went to 13 damage/sec at half the durability drain and melts frozen doors. Firefly Burners ignite on impact. Adrenaline Shot now works at full stamina as a refresh.
- Expedition Vault is disabled — contents auto-moved to your stash, Bronze Statuettes paid out as compensation. Check the stash before assuming anything vanished.
Trials — Season 6, Week 4
Live until the Tuesday reset. Stars pay at 1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000 points per trial — an item or blueprint at each tier (Uncommon, Rare, Epic), 15 rewards a week, and points only bank when you extract. Your best single run is the one that counts.
Search ARC Husks — Pendola Pass
Search husks scattered across the pass.
Easiest clear: run it during Redirection and let the beacon route carry you past husk clusters — the same run feeds your Firefly research leg. One condition window, two progress bars.
Search Backpacks
Search backpacks anywhere topside.
Easiest clear: residential interiors — Grandioso Apartments on Buried City or Old Town housing. Dense, fast, low-ARC rooms; pair it with the husk run rather than dedicating raids to it.
Damage Flying ARC — Medium Ammo
Damage Wasps, Hornets and Snitches with medium-ammo weapons.
Easiest clear: your amplified Renegade is a medium-ammo DMR — this trial is free progress for carrying it. Snitch Scanners summon two Wasps and a Hornet on demand when the sky is empty.
Damage ARC — Deadline
Deal damage with the Deadline mine.
Easiest clear: big, slow targets convert the whole blast into points — Bastions and Bombardiers on patrol routes. Craft a stack before you go (2 ARC Circuitry, 1 Comet Igniter, 3 Explosive Compound each) and mine the doorway they'll walk through, not the ground they're standing on.
Damage — Blaze Grenade
Deal as much Blaze Grenade damage as possible.
Easiest clear: Leapers. Fire strips their armor and exposes the leg and head joints, so one grenade into a doorway-lured Leaper out-earns three thrown at scattered ground ARC. Clustered Pops and Ticks are the filler between Leapers.
One honest gap: Embark doesn't publish exact per-search point values for the husk and backpack trials, so the routes above are community consensus rather than verified math. The damage trials' thresholds are the standard 1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000.
Loadouts the Community Is Running
2.3.0 didn't rebalance a single primary, so the post-2.2.0 pairs still rule — the patch's real loadout change is the Heavy Shield buff underneath them.
- PvE anchor: Hullcracker + Anvil — armor break, then heavy finisher. Still the default big-ARC answer.
- PvP: Anvil + Tempest for mid-range control; Bettina + Vulcano when the map goes close-quarters.
- Hybrid: Tempest + Canto — and your amplified Canto, once the Carbine Conversion lands, is a better version of this pair's second slot.
- Budget: Ferro + Stitcher at roughly 500 credits remains the value king for farm runs you can't afford to lose.
Your amplified Anvil slots straight into both anchor pairs — X-Rounds is the node that keeps it there permanently, which is exactly why it's your first research.
Emperor & Frigate — Advanced Notes
- Emperor routing changed under you. The depth redistribution means the ~10-minute route's value now concentrates past the Crusher Room — the white-light door rule and the final-hangar wait-out (don't engage the Vaporizer) matter more, not less, because you're committing deeper every run. Bettina still prices a canister at seven shots.
- Repeat-run economics: you only ever need one Emperor Modulator. Spares are 7,000 coins or two Motion Cores — convert them, don't hoard them.
- Frigate loot is the breach circuit, not just the pod — 64 hull hatches, wing vents and fire rooms at roughly three containers each, and the same depth rule applies: work inward. Ride the pod down on top; standing beside it when it releases is the one fatal mistake.
- Window calls: a Frigate over Pendola makes a pure Emperor run quieter — the lobby is on the ship — but it devalues ground loot map-wide, disables Raider Hatches and free loadouts. Pure dungeon run: green light. Combined Emperor-plus-ground-farm route: wait for a clean Redirection window.
Your Bench, Tonight
- Research Station IV is operational and the amplified trio is real: Renegade, Anvil, Canto — all amplified, no nodes installed yet.
- Two researches running (2 of 5 slots): Embedded Blast Engineering — all four 1,000-damage grenade legs at zero — and Thermite-Tipped Rounds at 0 of 30 Fireballs. The Fireball double-dip is your fastest line: grenade damage ticks one counter, a mine finish ticks the other.
- Points: 7,850 banked against 10,000 needed for both turn-ins. When you top up, the Frigate Diagnostic Node is the efficient study at 1,000 points — five Data Modules' worth in a single item.
- Carbine Conversion is one farm short: Propellant Valve Assembly sits at 1 of 3. No published farm spot exists — payloads and Frigate breach loot are where its sibling parts concentrate.
- Soul's Offering, Stage 1: one Dead Flowers and two Rock Salt still outstanding, deadline November 16. Old Town on Pendola has the boosted trinket rates; Rock Salt hides on tabletops and in kitchen drawers.
- Your process board tracks all of it, tap by tap: arc-research-board.pages.dev
See you topside.
Hero art is an original illustration made for this brief. Trial list cross-checked against Embark's weekly graphic for Oct 26 – Nov 1; loadouts reflect the post-2.2.0 community meta, unchanged by 2.3.0's balance pass.