How to get a rival to spawn (guide)

[TheCatPlaysGamez]

Ok, so you want to know how a rival spawns? Follow these easy steps:
Step 1: Find the region you want your rival to spawn in, and go there:

If the active rival stat is 1 or higher, then there are rivals to kill. If not you have to make them spawn:
The region level determines the spawn chance, higher level = higher chance
You level the region up by earning points

Step 2: Shoot enemies
You earn points by defeating robots
You need to earn 1000+ points to get a decent spawn chance.

Step 3: Find a FNIX Tank
Alternatively, a military tank or a FNIX harvester works too.
These have the highest spawn chances when it comes to good loot.

Step 4: Let it kill you
If an enemy defeats you, there is a chance of it turning into a personal rival.
If it doesnt chance:
1: if it’s the only big enemy in the area, leave it and come back later to try this step again.
2: go back there and defeat it to add to the region score.
Chances are that if you defeat robots, a regional rival might appear. This can be anywhere in the region so pay attention! There is a UI popup that tells you of the appearance of a rival, and you also get a change of background music when it happens.

Step 4.5: Let the rival kill you for level ups
Optional.

If the rival kills a player, it gains roughly 100xp. it needs roughly 500xp so 5 kills to level up.
Higher rival level = higher chance of obtaining an experimental weapon.

Step 5: Kill other machines in the region
The rival also levels up from killing machines in the region. Level 4 is max, and it provides the highest loot drop chances.

Step 6: Defeat the rival
Rivals are considerably tougher than normal enemies. On top of that, any destroyed component (including guns and tick spawners) will regenerate. UNCONFIRMED BUG: Regenerated components might be immortal, needs confirmation.

Step 7: Move to another region
A rival spawn has a 2 hour cooldown, meaning none can spawn in the same region until 2 hours after the last spawned. So move to another location to hit another!

EDIT NOTES:
This method isn’t “guaranteed”, just the best way I have found so far
Rivals may spawn from 500 to 2500 score, this is pure RNG and thus you might get unlucky, meaning you have to kill a lot of robots
Rivals do not guarantee a experimental drop.

Some pictures:

video:

XP list of enemies (which counts towards either regional XP or rival XP, depending on whether a rival is active or not in said region):
Robot score list:
2p - tick (proto)
3p - tick (military)
4p - tick (FINX)
4p - seeker (proto)
5p - seeker (military)
6p - seeker (FINX)
8p - runner (proto)
10p - runner (military)
20p - runner (FINX)
32p - hunter (proto)
40p - hunter (military)
48p - hunter (FNIX)
64p - harv (proto)
80p - harv (military)
96p - harv (FNIX)
128p - tank (proto)
160p - tank (military)
192p - tank (FINX)

[Zesiir]

This is great, I’ll sticky this

[Aquablade95]

I also posted this in the amino community “FNIX”

[ameinild]

Great guide - although it doesn’t change the fact that it feels quite ridiculous to let yourself die for rivals to spawn and level up.

[TheCatPlaysGamez]

Regional rivals can spawn without you dying. But by letting yourself die may cause a personal rival to spawn. Thus, if you first try to trigger both a personal rival and a regional rival with a single enemy, you double your chances of one spawning.

The level up is also optional.

[Zesiir]

It’s interesting, the Rivals update adds a whole new layer to my hardcore mode. Everytime you die, that enemy levels up and since they’re persistent in the world, it adds to the danger of exploring.

[Ennui]

Wow, those names are really terrible!
I mean, really, really terrible.

I guess the “of (location)” is neutral enough.
If there were more survivors and they were to report on a somehow particularly resilient or vicious bot, maybe it would be the Bane of Boo, or whatever.

But the rest are pure garbage. “of Meatbags”? Where would such a name even come from? We generally don’t think of ourselves as “meatbags”, and the bots generally don’t seem smart enough enough to name things/self, and if even if they were and they did, how would we know about it? I guess the, shall we say, final boss would be smart enough, but it seems a bit out of style for it (plus I’m sure we’ve all defeated it at this point, so it’s arguably not in a position to hand down any more nomenclature).

The Ultimate Foe? Bit juvenile. Also, on a prototype machine?

“of teammates” is also pretty bad. If they can’t be bothered to come up with good designations, I wish they’d just stuck to the serial number or model no. or whatever it is. If they need designations at all, which I’m not presently sure they do.

Go on, then. Tell me that the piece of tech we get off our first kill – offscreen, of course – that shows us the direction and level of bot aggro also translates bot names for us from botswanian and that it all makes perfect sense.

[ameinild]

Wow, those names are really terrible!

I had a good laugh about “The Nightmare of Teammates”… You talkin’ to me? No, good!

[Zesiir]

In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, an infamous assassin droid refers to humans as meatbags. It’s a reference, has to be.

I lol’d at the Slaughterer of Humans, though. I don’t really mind, they’re funny

[sirjamesafkize]

Thanks______________

[Simulacrum_Protogen]

I do agree that the names can be a bit stupid, but they are definitely not as funny as some of the Randomly Generated names in No Man’s Sky!

[drbsec]

Is there any way to keep stats on the Rivals that you encounter or kill? I know the map keeps up with their location.

[J_Skill]

@TheCatPlaysGamez that makes sense to have a cool down on the rivals because I had a region score 5514 and only one rival so it does make sense. I know there is also a loot cool down as well which is great so people don’t farm loot over and over and over again. After going into bunkers and other locations: about 10-15 of them I get bored and want to kill machines. What I have notice is the cool down only applies when you in game.

I work Monday thru Friday so with almost 10 hours or more from having my ps4 on, I notice the loot doesn’t come back. So I was like hmm maybe it resets in 24 hours, I never really google and research the cool down timer but I can confirm on multiple situation if you not in the game the cool down timer doesn’t move or my game is just glitch. It possible is because I can hear the tank under the floor, how am I suppose to kill something underground? Sometimes I don’t have the liberty to get on everyday but with the latest patch and OP rockets I play the game less and less and look into other co op games like path of exile that is free to play now.

I am not going to go to 15-20 locations to grab 30-50 medkits to use about 10 of them in one encounter with hunters. I do have friends that have the game but we in different time zones so it’s hard to be online when I am essential worker and have to be at work, I don’t have the liberty to be online all day. The more I play this game solo the more I will just wait until the patch comes and play other games. Final fantasy remake is out, plenty of games to play until the developers do something.

Even with visible perk on max and one spec in walking stealth, they can still see you and spam their rockets. If they don’t hit you with the rockets, they will just shoot in that direction and nonstop too. Before machines would sometimes just continue to shoot up a house of your last known location but with the patch, all machines are crank up to 20

[Ekul_3]

So I’ve been considering going out and maiming my newest rivals so when they reach max level they are easier to kill. Your saying that the weapons/parts I will have destroyed will “grow back” or regenerate?
Nice guide btw!

[Aesyle]

Your saying that the weapons/parts I will have destroyed will “grow back” or regenerate?

They only do when rival levels up. E.g you shoot the weapon off from lvl3 rival, leave it be, kill some other machines, rival levels up to lvl4 and gets it’s weapon back.

[AliasDJA]

I’ll give you a heads up,

Get your rivals to Level 4, 8 per region.

[gzbugs]

Not sure how often it happens - killed around 100 rivals up to now, met my first doggo:

Only saw hunters, tanks and harvesters and got mostly dupes. This one was carrying absolutely nothing except SMG ammo, even after reloading a savegame to try it again. Any opinions on drop rates with this class / about when the loot they carry is determined by the game (when they become a rival vs when they’re destroyed)?

[davidwum]

so there is no limit on how many rivals i can spawn in one part of the island ?

[AliasDJA]

8 per region, 6 regions