Where to find rods to complete Cutthroat Competition in Marathon
Cutthroat Competition is Traxus' first priority contract in Marathon after signing up with them in Introducing: Traxus. While it sounds simple on paper—grabbing two rod salvage items from a specific location—the area in question is a hot zone for PvP and PvE shootouts. In other words, it's hard to find a second to actually hunt for the quest items.
To save you from getting gunned down and failing to make any progress, but also risk losing your loot, I'll explain what you need to do to complete Cutthroat Competition below.
How to complete Cutthroat Competition in Marathon
Your task is to find and extract two rod salvage items of any quality from Dire Marsh's Maintenance area in the southwest of the map. Importantly, you must find both rods within a single round.
Specifically, you're looking for:
- Deimosite Rods
- Cetinite Rods
- Ballistic Turbines
You'll generally find these loosely placed on boxes, tables, and shelves, or inside Arms Lockers and other containers.
I recommend searching the rooms and corridors in the basement of Maintenance, since you'll often find rods on the tables and shelves down here (and there won't be any UESC robots). In fact, I struck RNG gold and found three Deimosite Rods from the lower level, which was more than enough to finish the quest.
It's also worth checking the walkways on the upper floor of Maintenance, as there are more boxes up here, including an Arms Locker. Of course, rods also have a chance to spawn on the main level, but it's crawling with UESC and it's a common hunting ground for players, too.
As mentioned, finding the rods you need is only half the battle—you need to extract with at least two rods to complete the contract. And now you know where to look should you ever need more Deimosite Rods, Cetinite Rods, or Ballistic Turbines again in the future.
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