Manufacturers/Consumers and Drop Chance

[Czar]

From my few dozen hours in 0.7 so far, I haven't found any reliable indicator on how contracts, corps, or stations influence what upgrade materials could be present. I see some posts that offer general advice, such as fight scientists for better chance of ai modules, but with the sheer number of upgrade materials needed it's difficult to keep track of where everything could be found. What, if anything, does the manufacturers and consumers influence outside of market prices?
IMO it feels like a missed opportunity to guide the player to what stations they should visit to seek out upgrade materials, since it would naturally make sense that a station that creates or uses a resource would be more likely to have that resource lying around for the player to loot...

[Valnak]

I don't think consumers/producers has anything to do with drops, otherwise I'd have gotten more than 3 AI modules when I keep farming producers or consumers. See below for my reasoning.

What I do know:
1. Research modules come from sabotage missions where the objective is "communication arrays" where you kill the satellites. The crate in the same room. Does not work for fighting Tez.
2. Welders/robotics/construction drones come from sabotage missions where the objective is "shipment" or something. The crate in the same room. Does not work for fighting Tez.
3. I have never seen industrial ARs anywhere except for printers, they cost 4 armor plates each.
4. Armor/Weapon crates drop from higher tier enemies such as realware elites, mechanized, etc.
5. Comm modules seem to drop faily often from AnCom tier 2s, not sure Deacons specifically but they're in the same missions.
6. The various datapads can be found fighting AnCom or SBN it seems, you'll get a lot of them. There's also what I call "Library" rooms where they have 3 bookshelves with them right beside each other. You can also fight Church of Revelation or Sunlight Coven and get a lot of stuff like that from them.
7. I can't really find many thermal containers, but the ones I have found I found in medicine cabinets, I think they were fighting SBN.
8. I can't find AI modules. I've found 3 on the ground. This is why I think it has nothing to do with consumers:

I spawned a mission against Franche-Comte on a world that said it consumed AI modules. I made the quasimorphosis go to 1000 on each of the 4 levels and made sure to check every area, every loot box, every corpse and everything. I even used the map reveal quasi item. I found 0.

[Czar]

@valnak Appreciate the notes, I'll add that I've found weapon cases fighting RealWare and on the VIPs in elimination missions, perhaps more often on missions with higher difficulty.

I've also found gold bars in stations that do not manufacture or consume them, so that supports my suspicions.

[thebiggerboat3]

I don't get it. Do manufacturers of items barter said items when trading? If so, what value level do you need to reach when bartering to get said items? How do you indicate that? Once you put an item up for barter, there's no take-backs, so its very much a gamble.

[leader cocaine]

i believe Phoagne already confirmed multiple times that manufacturers have no influence on drop chances

[leader cocaine]

Originally posted by thebiggerboat3:

I don't get it. Do manufacturers of items barter said items when trading? If so, what value level do you need to reach when bartering to get said items? How do you indicate that? Once you put an item up for barter, there's no take-backs, so its very much a gamble.

what a station offers depends entirely on who owns it and what they offer you depending on their tech level and friendliness towards you

[leader cocaine]

i hope the entire trading system will get improved on over time but for now its totally fine as it is

[CGI_Lantern]

Originally posted by leader cocaine:

i believe Phoagne already confirmed multiple times that manufacturers have no influence on drop chances

Thats so unintuitive...

Manufacturers should have a small portion of the thing what they producing (waiting for shipment), or a 3d printer of the item in question always presented on the map ...

As for the consumer side, they shoud have stock of the item because they are consuming it...