The big Arc Raiders Flashpoint update is finally out, and as is often the case, many players are more enamored with quality-of-life changes than the big new content, which is quite substantial in its own right between new Arc, resource projects, weapons, and map conditions. Lovable, resource-collecting rooster Scrappy may be the biggest winner of the patch, as he's gone from scavenging bits of plastic and metal to occasionally sourcing once-exclusive, Legendary-grade Arc reactors.
Flashpoint added a new feeding queue that lets you supercharge Scrappy's resources by giving him fruit, mushrooms, olives, agave, and crafted fruit mix. Previously, once you'd upgraded Scrappy to his max level, all those lemons and apricots lost almost all of their value. In a survival game-flavored twist, you can now offer them to our lord and savior Scrappy regularly to boost his gains, with each type of food netting boosts to specific material types.
"The bond to your raiding rooster has been deepened, and you can now increase the types of loot Scrappy collects by feeding him particular items. Out of gratitude, Scrappy will also drop you some more valuable items so long as you continue to feed him," Embark wrote in the patch notes.
What Embark didn't say, and which many players have now reported, is that you can boost Scrappy all the way to the endgame. With a little luck and a little snack, Scrappy has a chance of scrounging up Queen and Matriarch reactors, which are normally only obtained by defeating the toughest Arc in the game (or, perhaps, stripping and looting their leg armor before sneakily extracting early).
"Scrappy... where the hell did you find that?" asks the surprised recipient of a Matriarch reactor on Reddit.
"Did.... Did scrappy take down a matriarch!?" wonders another stunned onlooker, as another player celebrates a free Queen reactor.
Early findings suggest feeding Scrappy apricots gives him a shot at Legendary reactors since they're on the gunsmith material table, at least once you unlock blueprints for the likes of the Jupiter and Aphelion energy guns. It's still unclear how in-raid behavior or blueprint unlocks may affect Scrappy's odds.
Even if you don't luck into free reactors, you can still net extra gun parts, upgrade materials, and other higher-value resources. This makes Scrappy and throwaway fruits much more relevant, creates another grind to top up as you finish raids (in my mind, mirroring the various Palico farms in Monster Hunter games), and injects a little extra serotonin into trips to Speranza. That's three birds with one bird.
