What is this Blue Orb? Bug, or Leaked new Mechanic for mod drops, or have I missed something new?

[jRazz]

So I was playing an Arbiters' syndicate mission 3 days ago, Spy on Earth, when I came across this Blue Orb. My Vacuum was ignoring it. It has spawned directly on an Arbiters Medallion, and when I moved in to pick up the Medallion, I also absorbed the orb. Regretfully, I can't say for sure if the orb got absorbed merely from touching it, or if picking up the Medallion also absorbed the orb, since I moved in and picked up the Medallion in one fluid move. But, once I picked up the Medallion, I saw the Shocking Touch mod appear on the right of my screen, and it was indeed in my mission progress too. There were no mod drops around me, so I know that I got that Shocking Touch from this blue orb.

Initially, my speculation was that it's just a bug where the mod dropped from an Arid Eviscerator or an Arid Trooper, but dropped in the form of a Blue Orb when it shouldn't have. This would probably also result in my Vacuum not detecting this bugged drop as a valid item to suck up. By the time I noticed this peculiar blue orb, I honestly had no recollection of whether or not I killed any enemies near that spot though. But now I'm thinking that it's very unlikely for it to have dropped from an enemy at that exact spot as the Medallion, while also seeming to be slightly off the ground (a bit above the medallion) unlike regular drops. This would suggest it spawned there rather than being dropped there from a killed enemy.

Any thoughts or information I am not aware of?

[Mk.1]

It looks like a discoloured Nav Coordinate, but I'm not sure what it is. Strange.

[jRazz]

14 minutes ago, jRazz said:

By the time I noticed this peculiar blue orb, I honestly had no recollection of whether or not I killed any enemies near that spot though.

I just noticed a Rifle Ammo drop right below it!  So that confirms that I did kill an enemy on that spot.

In the first screenshot only. My Vacuum obviously sucked up the ammo drop when I got closer for the second screenshot. But that also shows that the ammo drop is on the ground while the Blue Orb is not. So the Orb could still have spawned with the tile, rather than dropped by an enemy.

Edited July 27, 2017 by jRazz

[NightmareT12]

I think it's an affinity orb. Green are boosters, pinks I think were used for Warframe component drops from bosses, Blue, Red and the 6th orb are old models for Energy, HP and Nav Coordinates.

And of course there's a Vay Hek coordinate there too.

[jRazz]

5 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

I think it's an affinity orb. Green are boosters, pinks I think were used for Warframe component drops from bosses, Blue, Red and the 6th orb are old models for Energy, HP and Nav Coordinates.

To the best of my recollection, old Affinity orbs were white. But even if they were actually very bright and light blue, I think they would have been much lighter than my blue orb.

You are correct about the rest. The Pink orb is still the orb model for getting BP drops from enemies.