Can’t tell you how many machines I’ve lost out looting due to water. This is my 4th rival this has happened to.
2 tanks, 1 harvester, and now a fnix hunter. This is also the closest I come to getting it… so close. The others all head-dived off edges and disappeared in the depths. This one sits in a marsh a foot away! AAAAARRRRGGGHGHHHHH!!!
And yes that’s an angry castrated tank in the background too scared to dip his toes in the deadly shallow end of the pond. Lol!
You can loot Machines in the water if there’s a shore nearby. Just dive in and hit ‘Use’ on them quickly. You’ll respawn at the shore, but the loot inventory will remain. I’ve saved a lot of good loot that way 
Its even easier to loot them if you disable the “hold” on use. To make it single click option, which is now true (finger) life saver in game.
Menu -> Settings -> Game -> Hold to interact = OFF
This probably would have worked on this one, but not on the first 3. They slid down about 15-20 feet below, not shallow water.
And yet again! And this one was a weird one!
First I’m taking on an apocalypse lvl 4 rival harvester and an apocalypse tank. I take out all the hunters and then the rival harvester. Then while battling the tank nowhere near water shoreline, it appears to kick the (un-looted) rival harvester and both go flying across the screen about 200 meters and then fall into the ocean! WTF!
Where they were
Where they flew to
Its like I’m cursed. If I at least had most or all of the experimental weapons, I’d be fine with it. But a large majority of my rivals seem to always end up in the drink. This one was fought well away from the water and yet I am still denied its loot. It literally flew away into the water. As far as I’m concerned every rival that ended up in the water was loaded with experimental stuff and the game hates me and is personally taking it out on me and laughing!
This is amazing. How do you manage to do it?
Are you fighting in the shoreline, using the embankment as cover?
I can understand the frustration.
But dont know how this could be prevented.
(swimming and dive mechanics, but does the game really need those)
My recommendations is, fight rivals only far inland.
I have my share of tanks, harvesters and tons of those smaller machines end up in water. But in those you really dont loose anything valuable.
I thought I was safe from this. From the area I was fighting I could barely even see the water, and yet…
It was like the tank picked up his fallen brother and flew him to safety, only to realize too late the weight was too much and both plummeted into the water. If I wasn’t so pissed at this happening yet again, I’d laugh.
But No!
