Arc Raiders Line in the Sand Quest Guide (May 2026)

The Arc Raiders Line in the Sand quest had me jogging back and forth across Buried City for almost an hour before I figured out the quest markers were pointing me at the wrong stuff. If you’re stuck wondering where the train actually is, why “Marano Market” doesn’t exist on any map, or what “thruster valves” you’re supposed to find — same. I’ve got you.

Here’s what’s inside:

• The exact spots for all four objectives, in order
• The loadout I’d actually bring (don’t make my mistake)
• The bug that nearly forced me to start over
• What you get for finishing it, and what to do with that weird business card

This contract dropped with the Riven Tides update, which also added the new coastal map. But heads up — Line in the Sand has nothing to do with the new map. You’re heading back to Buried City for this one.

Why this quest is sneakier than it looks

Celeste hands you Line in the Sand from the Speranza safe room. The setup: a Stella Montis transport hauling Exodus materials never made it to Marano Station, and she wants you to figure out what happened. Sounds simple. It is not.

The reason this one frustrated me is that the quest log writes its objectives like a noir detective scribbled them in the dark. The first marker mentions “Marano Station,” but the train you need is south of the actual station. The third step says “thruster valves,” but you don’t pick up any valves. The fourth step calls a location something it isn’t called on the map.

Once you know what those clues actually mean, the whole thing is honestly pretty chill — there’s no boss fight, no extraction with a quest item, and you can split the four objectives across multiple raids if you keep dying or running out of time. Free loadout is fine.

The loadout I take into Buried City for this

I learned the hard way not to bring my best gear here. Not because the quest itself is dangerous, but because Buried City has rough patrol patterns near the central spine, and you’ll be running across most of the map. If another raider clips you, you don’t want to lose a kitted weapon on a contract that asks you for zero kills.

What I bring:

• A free kit or my cheapest light loadout
• Two or three adrenaline shots — you’re sprinting between four points
• A handful of bandages and one shield recharger
• A mid-tier sidearm in case you bump into Wasps near Hospital

That’s it. No explosives, no long-range rifle, no kitted-out armor. Don’t bring anything you’d cry about losing.

Step 1: Finding the derailed train (don’t go to Marano Station)

This is the trap. The first objective says “find out why the train never reached Marano Station,” and your gut tells you to go to Marano Station. Don’t.

Marano Station is in the north of Buried City, but the train you actually need is the derailed blue rail cars sitting half-buried in sand south of the station. They’re roughly between the Warehouse and Piazza Roma, near the center of the map. If you’re standing at Marano Station, just follow the tracks south and you’ll spot the cars sticking up out of the dunes.

You don’t have to interact with anything. Walk up to the train, get close enough that the proximity ping fires, and the objective updates on its own. I actually climbed on top of mine because I was looking for an item to interact with — you don’t need to do that, but it doesn’t hurt anything either.

Step 2: The tower behind Piazza Roma and the business card you’ll grab

Now turn east. From the derailed train, look toward Piazza Roma and you’ll see a small square tower up on a slight rise, next to the wall that runs perpendicular to Warehouse and Piazza Roma. It looks like a little watchtower or bell tower kind of thing.

You can’t walk in through a door. There’s a metal frame running up the side of the tower — climb that. Once you’re up on the platform, look in the southwest corner. There’s a bush, and tucked behind that bush is a small device some guides call a detonator and others call a terminal. Same thing.

Hit the Search for Clues prompt. The objective updates and the Marano Market Business Card drops into your inventory.

I almost ran right past this device the first time because I expected it to be on a wall or a desk. It’s literally sitting on the floor behind a plant, which is a weirdly easy thing to miss if you’re not looking down.

Step 3: “Thruster valves” actually means Market Ruins

This is the step that wasted the most of my time, so pay attention.

The next objective says you need to find thruster valves. You will not, at any point, find or pick up any valves. The quest just wants you to walk to a specific area, and the area is Market Ruins, not “Marano Market” — that’s the part that threw me. Marano Market doesn’t exist as a labeled location on the map.

Market Ruins is in the northeast part of Buried City, sitting just past the Library and Hospital area. You’re looking for a collapsed building with a raider hatch on its northern face, right next to the Hospital landmark.

Walk up to it. That’s it. The objective ticks over the moment you get close. No interaction prompt, no item to grab. Easiest of the four.

If you’ve got the map zoomed out, you might miss “Market Ruins” entirely — the label only shows up when you’re zoomed in pretty far. Pinch in if you’re not seeing it.

Step 4: The zipline basement and the photo you need to take

Last one. From Market Ruins, head east up the hill, passing between two of the outer buildings, until you reach a structure marked north of Dune’s End. You’ll know it when you see it.

Go inside, take the zipline down to the basement, and look to your right for a pile of cardboard boxes stacked up. There’s a photograph prompt when you get close. Hit it, snap the picture, done.

This is the only step that asks you to actually photograph something rather than just walk up. Make sure you see the confirmation that the picture was taken before you leave the basement, because…

The bug that almost made me redo the entire thing

Here’s the one I learned the hard way.

After I took the photo in the basement, I got jumped by a Bombardier on my way to extract and ate dirt. When I respawned at Speranza, the photo step hadn’t actually registered. The objective was still showing as incomplete, and when I jumped back into Buried City and ran to the basement again, I couldn’t trigger the photo prompt a second time.

I sat there for like ten minutes thinking the quest was permanently broken.

The fix: go back to Market Ruins. Just approach the area again. For whatever reason, that pings the quest tracker and it backfills the photo step as complete. After that, head to Speranza and turn it in to Celeste.

Not everyone seems to hit this bug, but enough other Raiders have run into it that I’d rather you know the workaround than panic the way I did. If your quest doesn’t update after the photo, don’t redo the whole thing — just touch Market Ruins again.

Rewards and what to do with the Marano Market Business Card

For finishing Line in the Sand, Celeste pays out:

• 2x Exodus Modules
• 2x Magnetic Accelerator
• 2x Magnetron
• Skill points under the new progression system that came with Riven Tides

The Exodus Modules and Magnetrons are genuinely useful for crafting and upgrades, so this isn’t a throwaway contract. The skill point rewards alone make it worth doing — the 2026 progression model ties skill points to combat and contract activity, so contract grinders get rewarded more than people who farm passively.

About that Marano Market Business Card you picked up in Step 2 — it stays in your inventory after the quest closes. It doesn’t unlock any follow-up content that I’ve found. You can sell it for credits and not lose anything. I held onto mine for a couple raids in case it tied into a later questline, but nothing showed up, so I dumped it.

Completing Line in the Sand also opens up follow-up Stella Montis-flavored jobs from Celeste, so if you’ve been ignoring her for the new coastal map quests, this is your gateway back into the Buried City storyline.

A few small things I wish someone had told me

Quick odds and ends from my run:

• The four objectives can be split across multiple raids. You don’t have to clear all of them in a single drop. If you’re low on time, do one or two and come back.
• You don’t need to make a safe extraction with anything. The Business Card is technically a quest item but it doesn’t require extraction to count.
• If you’re trying to dodge other raiders, the window right after a fresh raid kicks off (when most squads are heading straight for the new coastal map) gives you a much quieter Buried City. I cleared three of four steps without seeing another player.
• Bring a teammate if you can. Solo is totally doable, but Buried City gets spicy near Piazza Roma when patrols spawn in.

FAQs

Final thoughts on Line in the Sand

The Arc Raiders Line in the Sand quest is honestly fine once you stop trusting the in-game directions. Every objective has a name that points you in slightly the wrong direction — Marano Station instead of the derailed train, “thruster valves” instead of just walking up to a ruin, “Marano Market” instead of Market Ruins. The whole thing reads like Celeste hand-wrote the contract while half-asleep.

But for a contract that takes about twenty minutes once you know where you’re going, the rewards are solid and the new progression points stack up fast. If you’ve been on the new coastal map for a few raids and forgotten Buried City exists, this is a low-stress excuse to pop back over.

Just don’t go to Marano Station looking for the train. Trust me.