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There is a long list of crafting materials to find and use to upgrade your weapons and pod in NieR: Automata. Many of these materials are easier to obtain later in the game, but finding them early can help make your character much stronger earlier on.
One of the more rare crafting materials that players will need is Machine Arms. Despite sounding like something you'll find an abundance of, these are not easy to find and may require some dedicated farming early into the game; here's a good place to search.
Where To Farm Machine Arms In NieR: Automata
Machine Arms have a chance of dropping whenever a small machine is destroyed, of any variety. That being said, the chances for them to drop increase as the enemy's level increases, making Machine Arms very rare at the beginning of the game. If you're set on needing them earlier in the game, you'll simply need to increase the number of machines you can quickly kill.
After Chapter 4, you'll find and fight Adam for the first time. The pit where you fight him will now endlessly spawn enemies for you to fight, with many small machines spawning every few seconds. To get here, travel to the Desert: Housing Complex access point using fast travel and follow the path deeper into the ruins.
Once in the pit, enemies will spawn with new ones replacing them a few seconds after the original ones are destroyed. These machines aren't very high in level, so the drop rate for Machine Arms will be low, but the machine spawn rates at least make this your best method for farming early on. This is also a great method for farming Titanium Alloy.
You can equip a Drop Rate Plug-In Chip to speed up the process, but only by a bit.
***** The remainder of the article will contain slight spoilers for the final playthrough of the game *****
Where To Buy Machine Arms In NieR: Automata
During the final playthrough of the game, while playing as A2 during the main story, you'll have the option of erasing Pascal's memories after all the robots from the village are killed. Doing so will have Pascal return to the village and be a merchant that can be visited at any point up to the end of the game. One of the items that Pascal sells is Machine Arms. Pascal's full stock is:
- Machine Heads - 15,000 G
- Machine Arm - 1,125 G
- Machine Leg - 1,125 G
- Machine Torso - 1,125 G
- Machine Head - 1,125 G
- Children's Cores - 30,000 G
