ARC Raiders Canto SMG Guide: Finding The Budget Bobcat
If you want to absolutely melt shields without spending legendary resources, the Canto SMG is the only weapon you should be hunting right now.
The Flashpoint update brought some serious firepower to the game, but the Canto is easily my favorite addition for sheer practicality. It is a rare quality, medium ammo hose that spits out a terrifying 368 DPS. Think of it as a slightly weaker, highly accessible Bobcat.
The main problem is actually getting your hands on the blueprint. You do not just buy this off a vendor. The drop rates are notoriously stingy, and the absolute best farming routes require you to sprint headfirst into some of the most punishing map conditions the Rust Belt has to offer. I have died more times than I care to admit trying to secure this schematic, so I mapped out the most efficient ways to farm it.
Where To Find The Blueprint
You are entirely at the mercy of the random loot pool here, but you can heavily manipulate the odds in your favor by specifically queueing into two very hostile map conditions.
The Hurricane Grind
Your highest percentage chance of finding the Canto blueprint is inside First Wave Raider Caches. The catch is that these caches only spawn during the Hurricane major map condition. You are looking for small, buried tins on the outskirts of the map. They emit a faint beeping sound when you get close.
Farming this is miserable. The howling wind makes hearing the beep incredibly difficult, and the Hurricane condition constantly drains your shield. You are forced to run around highly vulnerable while staring at the dirt. I highly recommend pulling up an interactive map on a second monitor to track the fixed spawn points so you are not just wandering aimlessly in a storm.
Close Scrutiny Weapon Cases
If you refuse to deal with the Hurricane, your second best option is the Close Scrutiny map condition. During this phase, Combat Supplies drop onto the map every three to five minutes. The weapon cases inside these drops have a very high chance of holding the Canto.
This route is pure high risk PvP. Every drop is marked on the map globally, meaning every greedy scavenger in the lobby is going to sprint toward the exact same box. Close Scrutiny is also swarming with Vaporizers. If you are struggling to survive the drone swarms while fighting over these crates, check out my guide on how to take out the new flying enemy before you deploy.
You can occasionally pull the blueprint from regular weapon cases in standard weather, but the drop rate is incredibly low. Stick to the major conditions if you actually value your time.
Crafting Costs And Upgrades
Once you finally manage to extract with the schematic, fabricating the weapon is actually incredibly cheap, but the base stats demand immediate investment.
To actually craft the thing, you need your Gunsmith upgraded to level three. The material cost is extremely forgiving: you just need two Advanced Mechanical Components, five Magnets, and three Medium Gun Parts. Because it is so cheap to print, losing one in the field does not feel like a massive setback.
Combat Performance And TTK
You need to respect the math before taking this SMG into a firefight. The base damage is 6.5 per projectile. Because it is classified as an Agile weapon, you suffer zero movement penalty while aiming down sights. You can strafe at full combat speed while dumping your entire reserve.
But look closely at that Tier I magazine size in the table above. Eighteen bullets. A light shield requires exactly nineteen bullets to break. If you take a base level Canto into PvP, you will literally run out of ammo before downing the weakest targets in the game.
You absolutely must upgrade this weapon to Tier II or slap a magazine mod on it before hunting other humans. A medium shield requires twenty one shots, and a heavy shield demands a flawless twenty four hit unload. Push the gun to Tier IV, manage the heavy recoil, and you will be deleting people before they even realize their shields are gone.
