If you have been staring at the Expedition deadline and feeling the pressure build, take a second to breathe, because that signup window sliding to 17–22 December just changed everything and gives you more time to plan, farm, and even pick up a few ARC Raiders Items if you feel like skipping some of the grind.

What This Reset Really Means

On paper the optional hard reset sounds brutal, right. You hit the button and your Raider gets wiped – level, skills, workshop, all of it drops back to zero. But if you look at what you get out of it, it is more like a prestige system than a punishment. Hitting that 5M stash and coin value mark turns into real, permanent gains: +5 Skill Points baked into your new build, +12 stash slots that never go away, and exclusive cosmetics that let everyone know you went all in. Plus the annoying part of the game – the slow intro, locked maps, drip-feed of stations – that all disappears. You load into the new season and everything is open, so you go straight into proper runs instead of slogging through the tutorial again.

How To Push For 5M Without Burning Out

A lot of players hit a wall here because they keep doing “comfort” runs and crafting low-tier stuff out of habit. That is where value just leaks away. If you are crafting basic ammo and random low-level weapons right now, you are usually turning high-value mats into junk. Better approach is to treat every raid like an investment. Stella Montis is where most of the big swings happen, especially the Hidden Bunker and Night Majors. Those zones are sweaty and you will lose some gear, but when a Queen Core drops or you pull a rare Tempest blueprint, your stash jumps in a way that a dozen safe runs never will. If that style feels too intense, the Dam Battlegrounds are not as wild but still pay out decently with explosives and Anvil blueprints that move fast on the market.

Protecting Your Blueprints Before You Reset

The real panic for a lot of people is not levels, it is blueprints. Losing a hard-won Vulcano or Bobcat blueprint hits different, and you can feel that in chat every night. The trick is remembering that the reset is tied to the Raider you send on the Expedition, not your whole account. So if you are sitting on unlearned blueprints, pass them to a friend or an alt that is not signing up. It is a bit of a shuffle – trade them off, lock in your 5M, push the reset, then once your fresh Raider is live on Day 1, trade those BPs back. It is not glamorous, and you will probably have to track who is holding what, but it is way better than rolling the dice all over again on drops you already earned once.

Using The Delay To Set Up Your Next Run

These extra days are basically a test of how smart you are with your time and inventory. Clear out duplicates, do a few focused night raids instead of scattered ones, and stop sitting on gear you know you will never use once the reset hits. If you are short on rare alloys or just do not have the time for another hundred raids, some players lean on sites for help, grabbing specific gear or a missing piece like an ARC Raiders BluePrint so they can hit that 5M cap before the caravan rolls out on the 22nd.