Item Drop Rules

[Antifringe]

Original Thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/2971776551514708833/

With a lot of help from JCSato, I figured out the exact rules for item drops. To my knowledge, there's never been a thread about this. The rules are important and have direct gameplay implications. I thought I'd summarize the findings in a dedicated thread.

If you want to see this source for these rules, check the original thread. It's messy, but it's all there.

I don't 100% understand everything. Corrections and additions and welcome. If some brave soul wants to port this over to the wiki, please feel free.

Drop rates are complicated, because Armor, Helmets, Weapons, and Shields all follow slightly different rules. There are a handful of universal rules that all items follow:

Enemies only drop gear if the player is the killer (from \scripts\items\item_container.cnut): Your own dogs count as player controlled, but random allies do not. You still get the "Wagon loot" from enemy parties if you kill at least one opponent. There is a special check that causes Legendary (not to be confused with merely Famed) items to drop no matter what.

Famed and Legendary gear always drops unless it was destroyed: Only exception is that Famed gear isn't captured from enemies killed by non-player factions. Legendary items are captured by the player even if some rando is the killer. It looks like champions (and only champions) follow different drop rules. Any named gear they have drops, even if reduced to zero. Sorry for the weak language, still waiting for a consensus on this one.

The Blacksmith: Allows you to retrieve friendly gear, even if it was destroyed (you get it back at 0 health). Doesn't help you capture destroyed enemy gear.

Raiders: The Northern Raiders get a special bonus roll to capture enemy gear. They get a flat 15% chance to keep anything, regardless of condition. This can allow you to capture destroyed gear.

Now for the class specific rules. Remember that the universal rules apply to each of these cases:

Weapons:
-A weapon must have 12 or more health to be droppable.
-Throwing weapons can drop if they were in the guy's hands when he died and there was still ammo left.
-Bagged weapons can drop if they are NOT at full ammo (thanks to Calandro for explaining this one to me)
-If you pass any of the above conditions, you must also pass a 90% random roll
-Raiders get their 15% bonus roll as an entirely separate check


Armor:
-If the armor belonged to a dead bro, you retrieve it if it had 10 health left
-Otherwise, durabililty must exceed 30 flat value AND 25%
-There is no random check for armor. If you meet the durability condition, it's yours
-Raiders get their 15% bonus roll as an entirely separate check

Helmet:
-If the helmet belonged to a dead bro, you retrieve it if it had 15 health left
-Otherwise, durability must exceed 30 flat health AND 25%
-If the helmet belonged to an enemy, you must also pass a 70% random roll to capture it, in addition to the durability check
-Raiders get their 15% bonus roll as an entirely separate check

Shields:
-If the shield belonged to a dead bro, you retrieve it if it had 6 health left OR 25% health
-Otherwise, durability must exceed 6 flat value AND 25%
-If the shield belonged to an enemy, you must also pass a 90% random roll to capture it, in addition to the durability check
-Raiders get their 15% bonus roll as an entirely separate check

[Calandro]

Who the ♥♥♥♥ is JC Santo?
Also a few corrections, give me a second.

Weapons:
-A weapon must have one each of the following:
1. Have 0 max ammo OR dropped by the player OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND not be in the bag) OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND less than max ammo AND be in the bag)
2. Have more than 12 durability OR have 1 or less maximum durability OR succeed on the raiders 15% roll OR be saved by the Blacksmith follower OR (not dropped by player AND is a named item) OR is Legendary)
3. Was dropped by the player OR succeed on the raiders 15% roll OR is Named OR is Legendary OR succeed on a 90% roll

Armour:
-Armour must have the following:
1. (Must have more than 10 durability AND dropped by player) OR (more than 30 durability AND more than 25% max durability) OR (not dropped by player AND is Named) OR is Legendary OR saved by the blacksmith.

Shields:
-A shield must have one each of the following:
1. Be saved by the blacksmith OR have more than 6 durability
2. Dropped by player OR have over 25% durability
3. Dropped by player OR northern raider roll OR saved by blacksmith OR (not dropped by player AND is Named) OR is Legendary OR succeed a 90% roll

Helmets:
-A helmet must have the following:
1. (Must have more than 15 durability AND dropped by player) OR (more than 30 durability AND more than 25% max durability AND (northern raider roll OR succeed a 70% roll OR (not dropped by player AND is Named) OR is Legendary OR saved by blacksmith)

The general rule is you ALWAYS get named equipment from enemies, regardless of condition, the only exception being Named Shields.

[Antifringe]

For me at least, this information really changes things. Like most people, I assumed that drop chances scaled with remaining health. But that's not true at all! There's a threshold value that you have to pass, but you aren't penalized for being close to it, nor are you rewarded for exceeding it.

The randomness comes from the special checks made for helmets, shields and weapons (but not armor!). Helmets have a 30% of being lost no matter what, whereas weapons and shields have a 10% chance of being lost. Armor always drops if you meet the threshold conditions.

Famed and Legendary gear always drops as long as you don't destroy it (and Legendary stuff maybe even survives that, not sure).

The dagger party strategy is still the best way to get gear, but you don't have to be anywhere near as careful as you probably have been. It's okay to do some damage to that sweet looking armor, it doesn't hurt your chances at all unless you drop below threshold. You don't have to be careful at all if the gear is famed! Just don't totally destroy it with your hammer bro.

Calandro has pointed out some wonkiness in the code with regards to drops. Sometimes the game won't generate a corpse from a fallen enemy. No corpse means no loot. This can happen if the victim has no open tiles adjacent to him AND if the killer already has a corpse in his hex. This is the probable reason for reports of famed gear not dropping. It's easy to avoid if you're aware of it.

Low level gear is harder to retrieve because the flat value threshold becomes so important. In the early game, even things like a Blotched Gamebson (70 point armor) is worth trying to capture. The capture threshold for armor is 30 flat AND 25%. The 30 flat is what is important here, because 70 is such a low number. It's very easy to drop the gamebson below 30, even with random chip damage.

But for higher tier gear, like a Coat of Scales (300), it's much easier. You can afford to whack the guy with your mace a few time to stun him without being scared that you might lose that armor. You can inflict 225 points of armor damage on that thing and still be fine.

It's worth focusing down Thralls that have their throwing weapons out in the early game. You have a 90% of capturing the throwing stack if they die while wielding it, and few things boost the power of an early company than quick access to throwing weapons.

[Antifringe]

Originally posted by Calandro:

Who the ♥♥♥♥ is JC Santo?
Also a few corrections, give me a second.

I obviously meant JCSato, come on my dude.

Weapons:
-A weapon must have all of the following
One each of the following:
1. Have 0 max ammo OR dropped by the player OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND not be in the bag) OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND less than max ammo AND be in the bag)
2. Have more than 12 durability OR have 1 or less maximum durability OR succeed on the raiders 15% roll OR be saved by the Blacksmith follower OR (not dropped by player AND is a named item) OR is Legendary)
3. Was dropped by the player OR succeed on the raiders 15% roll OR is Named OR is Legendary OR succeed on a 90% roll [/quote]

The thing with 1. is that I think it also checks for condition > 12. Which makes no sense wrt throwing weapons. Am I reading the paratheses incorrectly?

2) I left out the "must have more than 0 max durability" because there aren't any player-usable weapons that are like that. I think that rule is there so that dire wolves don't drop their bit attack or something silly like that

3) Don't see how that isn't already contained in what I wrote.

(Calandro and I are both editing our posts and it makes the emerging conversation kind of weird to read)

I appreciate the double checking, but most of what you writing is just a literal dump of the code and is logically equivalent to what I wrote, but a bit harder to parse. I'm interested in bagged throwing weapon thing, though.

[zeldagaiden]

Could we pin this? Its a recurring question at every player's life.

[Antifringe]

Originally posted by zeldagaiden:

Could we pin this? Its a recurring question at every player's life.

Let's let it sit for a week to work out any bugs or errors first. Someone might yet find a block of code that makes nonsense out of all of this :)

[Calandro]

The thing with 1. is that I think it also checks for condition > 12. Which makes no sense wrt throwing weapons. Am I reading the paratheses incorrectly?

2) I left out the "must have more than 0 max durability" because there aren't any player-usable weapons that are like that. I think that rule is there so that dire wolves don't drop their bite attack or something silly like that

3) Don't see how that isn't already contained in what I wrote.

1. Throwing weapon code is basically just
((have more than 0 current ammo AND not be in the bag) OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND less than max ammo AND be in the bag))

2. Just being specific, converting code to normal English
3. In the weapons sections you specifically say "Not sure about bagged throwing weapons, the code is confusing"

[Calandro]

Raiders: The Northern Raiders get a special bonus roll to capture enemy gear. They get a flat 15% chance to keep anything, regardless of condition. This only works five times per fight. So after your bonus procs five times, you get no more bonus gear. This cannot allow you to capture gear from enemies that you didn't kill yourself. This can allow you to capture destroyed gear.

Err, what? Do you have a source for that, regarding the 5 times per fight cap?

[Antifringe]

Originally posted by Calandro:

The thing with 1. is that I think it also checks for condition > 12. Which makes no sense wrt throwing weapons. Am I reading the paratheses incorrectly?

2) I left out the "must have more than 0 max durability" because there aren't any player-usable weapons that are like that. I think that rule is there so that dire wolves don't drop their bite attack or something silly like that

3) Don't see how that isn't already contained in what I wrote.

1. Throwing weapon code is basically just
((have more than 0 current ammo AND not be in the bag) OR (have more than 0 current ammo AND less than max ammo AND be in the bag))

2. Just being specific, converting code to normal English
3. In the weapons sections you specifically say "Not sure about bagged throwing weapons, the code is confusing"

No, I get that, and I appreciate it, but I was talking about things like this:

1. (Must have more than 10 durability AND dropped by player) OR (more than 30 durability AND more than 25% max durability) OR (not dropped by player AND is Named) OR is Legendary OR saved by the blacksmith.

which is equivalent to what I already wrote, but in my opinion, harder to parse for a human

[Antifringe]

Originally posted by Calandro:

Raiders: The Northern Raiders get a special bonus roll to capture enemy gear. They get a flat 15% chance to keep anything, regardless of condition. This only works five times per fight. So after your bonus procs five times, you get no more bonus gear. This cannot allow you to capture gear from enemies that you didn't kill yourself. This can allow you to capture destroyed gear.

Err, what? Do you have a source for that, regarding the 5 times per fight cap?

Cat® and JCSato both independently asserted it in the original thread. I haven't found the relevant code, but I find the two corroborating reports to be credible.

[Calandro]

Originally posted by Antifringe:

Cat® and JCSato both independently asserted it in the original thread. I haven't found the relevant code, but I find the two corroborating reports to be credible.

I'm decompiling the code again, to be sure I'm not out of date, but this is the first I've heard of it.

[Calandro]

Originally posted by Antifringe:

Originally posted by Calandro:

Err, what? Do you have a source for that, regarding the 5 times per fight cap?

Cat® and JCSato both independently asserted it in the original thread. I haven't found the relevant code, but I find the two corroborating reports to be credible.

I can't find a mention of that in the other thread?

[JCSato]

Originally posted by Antifringe:

Originally posted by Calandro:

Err, what? Do you have a source for that, regarding the 5 times per fight cap?

Cat® and JCSato both independently asserted it in the original thread. I haven't found the relevant code, but I find the two corroborating reports to be credible.

Still at work so catching up to this will be slow, but, uh. . .where? This does not sound correct at all.

[JCSato]

Originally posted by zeldagaiden:

Could we pin this? Its a recurring question at every player's life.

I'm not against pinning this information, but there are too many pins already. Might make more sense to codify it in the wiki.

Separately, and because he called me out on it elsewhere, Calandro is the one who first uncovered the corpse spawning thing - my info on that was just regurgitated from him. :D

[Antifringe]

Originally posted by JCSato:

Originally posted by Antifringe:

Cat® and JCSato both independently asserted it in the original thread. I haven't found the relevant code, but I find the two corroborating reports to be credible.

Still at work so catching up to this will be slow, but, uh. . .where? This does not sound correct at all.

Cat@ mentioned a five item limit and I remembered you agreeing with him, but looking back at it, you say it's "mostly correct," which is more ambiguous than I remember it being. I'll remove mentions of the limit for now.

Will also edit the OP to give Calandro credit

Also, I figured out the throwing weapon thing. I was reading the grouping wrong. It makes sense now. Will correct OP and credit Calandro for the editor work

[JCSato]

Originally posted by Calandro:

Who the ♥♥♥♥ is JC Santo?

That's my final form.