Is Dead Hills Crusher guaranteed Xenosamples?

[Pyro Hawk]

So I've done a search, but it seems no one's mentioned my current issue. If anyone has, I wouldn't mind being shown where it is.

As for the actual issue, it's as the title says: is the Crusher you kill in the Slaughterhouse after checking the container a guaranteed source of Xenosamples? Because watching The Mighty Jingles caused me to buy and play this game, but whereas he killed the Crusher and didn't pick up the Xenosamples that dropped, mine didn't drop any.

However I killed the Crusher on my first play through of the map (if admittedly right before I ran for the ARC to extract) and the event that seems to trigger collecting Xenosamples only happens after you return to the Otago for the first time.

Am I just unlucky and failed my RNG Check for getting Xenosamples from that Crusher? Has a patch changed the game since Jingles did the mission and it no longer provides Xenosamples? Or did I manage to cause considerable trouble for myself because I killed it before Xenosamples unlocked and so I lost out on the earliest large source of them?

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I've returned to the Dead Hills already and checked inside the Slaughterhouse so I know that the Xenosamples haven't 'miraculously' popped up there.

[=EBS= WarGanisM]

Xeno samples are random drops

[Zahnloli]

On your first deployment sample drops aren't a thing yet, so the crusher won't drop any either. I'm not sure if the samples become a thing after the first extraction or after extracting after the crusher.
Either way, once you do get samples every their two xeno (including all crushers) will drop 4 sample without fail.
Don't worry if you miss those 4, 4 ain't much. I was floating 90 by the time I hit the last mission.

[Rex]

You're correct in that you can't gather Xenosamples until you go back to the Otago at least once to have the conversation with the Lab scientist. So the Crusher won't drop anything unless you've triggered that scene by leaving the Mission before that part. I've played through the first few missions 5-6 times and this was the case every time unless I had went back to Otago first.

[Pyro Hawk]

Thanks for the answers. Came across something interesting though which might explain things. Does the dead Alien the people of Dead Hill killed right in front of the Mine Entrance usually have 4 Xenosamples on it? If so, never mind. If not... Well, that might be the 'designated location' to pick up the Crusher's samples if you kill it on your first Deployment.

Originally posted by =EBS= WarGanisM:

Xeno samples are random drops

For Drones and low level Aliens, yes. But for Bosses and 'Might as well treat it like at worst a Mini-boss' tier Aliens, they aren't. The Crusher is supposed to be one which is why I was wondering if the Slaughterhouse one was different or if I was just 'faster than expected' clearing out Dead Hills.

Pretty sure I picked this up from the Codex so it's not just 'my experience' (of which I don't have enough to really say yet) causing me to state this.

Originally posted by Apostle of Ebola:

On your first deployment sample drops aren't a thing yet, so the crusher won't drop any either. I'm not sure if the samples become a thing after the first extraction or after extracting after the crusher.
Either way, once you do get samples every their two xeno (including all crushers) will drop 4 sample without fail.
Don't worry if you miss those 4, 4 ain't much. I was floating 90 by the time I hit the last mission.

Going by how things worked out for me, I strongly suspect it's first Extraction. Either way, it's rather clear that the trigger is when you have the second conversation with the scientist on the Otago. So if you want to do a play through where you extract before killing the Slaughterhouse Crusher to see if the conversation triggers or not, go ahead.

Bigger question for me now is if you can kill the Queen on your first Deployment, what happens to her Xenosamples?

[Bamsmacked]

If it's on your second deployment it can drop samples I think

[mobucks]

You cannot kill the queen on your first deployment. You're basically still in the tutorial until you go back to the Otago the first time.

You can pretty much do every primary/secondary objective but you need to go back to Otago once to unlock the mine.

I personally prefer to just do the tutorial part of Dead Hills and get back to the Otago ASAP so I can choose the marines I want to gain XP. Not being able to choose what marines you bring the first time usually ends up with XP wasted on crap marines with the worst traits like unlucky or kleptomaniac.

When the game says you can move the APC around the map, go back to the Otago, choose marines that don't suck, deploy again and you can complete the entire map.

Protip: Grab as many supplies as you can with the tutorial squad before you extract the first time.

[Pyro Hawk]

Originally posted by Bamsmacked:

If it's on your second deployment it can drop samples I think

If you are talking about the Mine Entrance Dead Drone, I was asking how many it usually provides. If it's usually just one or two, then I suspect my Crusher's Xenosamples got moved to it. If it's usually more like four, then yeah. You definitely don't want to do the Slaughterhouse tasks on your first deployment.