What is the drop rate for energy and health orbs, as well as ammo bricks?

[Shop999]

Hello! I am curious about the probability of the drop rates for mission pickups (energy and health orbs, ammo bricks). If anyone here has any updated information that would be greatly appreciated :).

The only information I see was from 3 years ago buried deep within this thread here: 

But with the bevy of changes since 2019, it would be super helpful to have updated knowledge on these things again :).

[Ace-Bounty-Hunter]

All I know for certain is that Eximus units are guaranteed to drop an energy orb, two health orbs and either a primary or secondary ammo pickup when they die. 

[Chewarette]

For ammo, we have this on the wiki : 

Quote

Drop Chances

Chance to drop Primary or Secondary Ammo scales with squad size^[1]:

• 1 player squad = 45%, or 60% in Landscapes
• 2 player squad = 37.5%, or 52.5% in Landscapes
• 3 player squad = 30%, or 45% in Landscapes
• 4 player squad = 22.5%, or 37.5% in Landscape

Eximus are guaranteed to drop either a Primary or Secondary Ammo, each having the same chance of dropping.

It seems to be lacking info for the other pickups

 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

in my experience, it's always when you don't want it,  sometimes when you want it, and almost never when you NEED it. if you're desperate to proc Arcane Energize you can guarantee you won't see an Energy Orb for AGES, but sure enough it rains red orbs when I'm at full health, even without a frame that can make them...

[RafMatador22]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

in my experience, it's always when you don't want it,  sometimes when you want it, and almost never when you NEED it. if you're desperate to proc Arcane Energize you can guarantee you won't see an Energy Orb for AGES, but sure enough it rains red orbs when I'm at full health, even without a frame that can make them...

That's why I love it when several eximus enemies come at me, because the energy drop is guaranteed when killing eximus.

[Shop999]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

For ammo, we have this on the wiki : 

It seems to be lacking info for the other pickups

 

I have scoured the wiki, but as you can see such info does feel quite lacking and outdated, since the source the wiki cites is the source I linked in my original post.

To be clear, I have no issues dealing with enemies up to cap, nor do I have energy problems. I am just curious about this information

Edited October 3, 2023 by Shop999

[Tiltskillet]

Mag Pull used to have an effect where it would give extra energy orb chance when it killed an enemy.  When she got reworked a year ago, this was dropped from Pull's description, but it was never mentioned whether it was getting removed or not.  So even though I'm not super interested in Mag, and thought the effect was close to useless even if it worked anyway, my curiosity demon took over my body and compelled me to do a really stupid test where I killed 1500 L1 Infested Runners in the Sim and counted energy orb drops.  Here's the test:

500 Runners killed with 333% strength Pull: 72

500 Runners killed with 100 strength Pull: 76

500 Runners killed with melee: 75

Conclusion:  no more extra energy orb drop chance on Pull kills. 

But a more valuable benefit of that ridiculous test is that it's a decent sample size for general energy orb drop chance.  223/1500 = 14.867%.  So somewhere around 15%.  But note that the drop rates given for ammo in the AMA did vary with unit type, and my samples were only Runners.   Perhaps Grineer Sealab Snipers would still have been ~11% for energy orbs.

1 hour ago, Shop999 said:

I have scoured the wiki, but as you can see such info does feel quite lacking and outdated, since the source the wiki cites is the source I linked in my original post.

For ammo Chewarette quoted the drop chances that were released with Veilbreaker just over a year ago.  I'd hope these are still accurate for regular enemies.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Tiltskillet

[LittleLeoniePrime]

18 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

no more extra energy orb drop chance on Pull kills

and here I was thinking killing enemies with abilities still increased their energy orb drop chance... huh

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

and here I was thinking killing enemies with abilities still increased their energy orb drop chance... huh

Was that a general thing at some point?

[LittleLeoniePrime]

3 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Was that a general thing at some point?

I thought so yea 🤔

[Sled_]

I have followed up on Tiltskillet's work with the following (Kills via ability, no drop related mods/arcanes except for an unranked vacuum because mags passive was/is broken):

Arid Butcher 580kills (460 for ammo, started counting it late)
Health orbs: 83 (14.31%)
Energy orbs: 100 (17.24%)
Primary ammo: 48 (10.43%)
Secondary ammo: 41 (8.91%)

Arid Lancer 580 Kills
Health orbs: 90 (15.51%)
Energy orbs: 78 (13.44)
Primary ammo: 58 (10.00%)
Secondary ammo: 65 (11.20%)

Bombard 580 Kills
Health orbs: 89 (15.34%)
Energy orbs: 88 (15.17%)
Primary ammo: 57 (9.87%)
Secondary ammo: 63 (10.86%)
Heavy ammo: zero (see notes below)

 

Total:
Health: 262/1740 15.06%
Energy: 266/1740 15.29%
Primary: 163/1620 10.06%
Secondary: 169/1620 10.43%

 

 

While my money is on the type difference on the orb drops being gone and a overall 15/15/10/10 being the new paradigm I noticed two things that bug me.
-First my Mag's passive was down in the simulicrum. I have not used her since the change to her passive so I don't know if this is general break or something I did.
-Next was heavy ammo: I did not pull an arch gun until after the bombard waves to avoid weird drops or confusion between the yellow heavy and orange secondary. After I then decided to pull the archgun and kill a hundred in a quick check of the wiki advertised 5%. Zero heavy ammo dropped. I then started doing waves of all the listed units that drop them. Still no heavy ammo. Started varying the level from 1 to 35 to 90, still nothing. I am now well over 1k "Heavy unit" kills with no heavy ammo drops. Am I locked into one unit type somehow or did they just remove heavy ammo when they buffed archguns? I certainly seem to run out of archgun ammo more recently but I haven't noticed if I am actually picking up zero ammo.

Edit: While still unable to make heavy ammo spawn in the simulicrum I did confirm they exist in survival for me.

 

Edited February 20 by Sled_
new info

[Tiltskillet]

3 hours ago, Sled_ said:

While still unable to make heavy ammo spawn in the simulicrum I did confirm they exist in survival for me.

There was a time when eximus weren't dropping their guaranteed orbs in the Sim.  So there's some precedent for mundane drops in the Sim working differently.