It is not. From what I understand, it was removed after the event.
They’re deploying from the tick pod. Which… yeah, this seems like more of a bad joke than a rational design.
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I thought they were dropping from the sky?
Yeah, it looked like that to me too, but someone else pointed out that they were actually coming out of tick deployment balls. Though, taking out the tick pod might not stop them.
There must be a way to disable the Harv’s ability to spawn in those Hunter Pods. We’ve always been able to disable their other weapons and Tick Pod, seems strange that it wouldn’t apply here 
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Harvester deploys some form of signal/lure next to it on the ground. From afar, it looks like flashlight is shined on the ground. 1-2 seconds pass and big pods rain down from the sky. Once landed it takes about 1 second before hunter pops out from the pod.
In this topic is short clip of raining down pods: Hunters now dropping into hotspots
And in my reply, under spoiler tag, is the pod itself: Machine behaviour post April 2020 update
I don’t know if shooting the pod would destroy it and prevent hunter from spawning it. But that much i know that you can not damage and kill tick pods when tick hasn’t emerged from it yet.
This isn’t totally about the amount of hunters deployed being overpowered. It is and there is already a thread which addresses that although I might touch on it. I really like the idea of the harvesters being able to deploy Hunters. It brings a whole new element into the game and really makes it more interesting. However; the first time I saw it, I thought it was a glitch. It just didn’t look right visually. From my memory it looked they were being spawned like ticks and about the same size, and then rapidly grew to full size. I could be wrong, going by memory, but it definitely did not fit the more realistic existing art style of gen zero. So much so that it made me think something had gone wrong with the game.
For a harvester to deploy hunters, they would need to come out of an appropriately sized container(s). Frankly, I just don’t see enough room on one to carry much more than 2 or 3 containers. I also think that is about right as far as game balance goes. Once those 2 or 3 are deployed, that’s it. They don’t magically respawn in the containers. The different classes could have different amounts of containers from 1 to 3?
This should solve the OP problem and the immersion breaking visual at the same time.
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Same discussion topics merged.
//Mod
From what i can see, before i’m straight executed, The pods looks like hexagons, and it looks like the hunter is folded up. The pods are dropped from above, like maybe from some sort of automated aircraft, or maybe even from orbit…
Also, there IS a difference between class and drop… Prototype harvesters only spawn one prototype hunter, while all the rest are spawning 3 of whatever class the harvester is. That, by itself, is big, in terms of combat.
That is interesting, I really need to see it again. I’m pretty sure though that the apocalypse class harvester I was dealing with dropped at least 6 hunters at once. So maybe they’re not actually popping out of the harvester like I thought? Its hard to tell in the “fog of war”.
While it is true that a large portion of the game, namely the farmlands region, is open fields, I believe that it is intended that players go around the open spaces by lurking at the edge of the forest, at least if one wants to take the safest route. You still have the option to travel as the crow flies, but it’s more dangerous. I believe that this is an intentional trade off.
they are dropping from the sky, tested it out just now, shot of the tick pod, but the harv just made the calloing sound, and 3 red marks appeared on the ground around it. then the hunters arrived in their oversized tick-pods
apoc class harvester? never seen one, ever… pics or didnt happen 
well that just sucks… big hairy cheezy camel b*lls:(
I could be wrong, aren’t all the machines on the DLC that class? EDIT: Just went back and checked. Not all of the machines on the island are apoc class, so it may not have been, but whatever it was dropped at least six.
They’re definitely not coming out of the harvester. The harvester drops a beacon, and then the hunters drop on that location. I haven’t encountered apocs yet, so you might be right about the 6. I’ve encountered prototype, military, and fnix. as far as i can tell, prototype definitely only spawn one, and military and fnix are spawning at least 3.
Doesn’t much matter when there are machines everywhere, and they’re constantly patroling…i’ve found that they REALLY like to congregate at the various farms in the area, and then patrol the woods at the edges of the farms, and then patrol the roads. So even if you stick to the bush, you’re gonna get spotted, and assuming you don’t, the farms aren’t even really accessible.
It seems from multiple people that the hunters are not coming out of the harvester itself like I thought. I feel a little better about it now. Hunters popping out of a harvester without some sort of large canisters attached would be ludicrous. Although having 2 or 3 carried in large canisters on it’s back seems more plausible than having something that heavy dropped from an aircraft or from space. IMO. But it would be really cool to see them float down on parachutes and have retro rockets kick in just before they land.
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It wasn’t this bad until the April update. I mean there were still usually like a handful of runners and maybe a hunter or two at most farms, but they weren’t such an impossible challenge as they are now. I can only imagine that this change will be reverted given the extreme backlash from the community.
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one can only hope. A friend of mine just started a fresh playthrough. I, in what can only be described as a fit of insanity, decided to brew up a fresh character, and run with him. So far, it’s not so bad… 2 guns are better than one. In any event, we should be ok, until we get into the later parts of the Archipelago region. He’s still learning the game, so it’ll be a while.