I don’t know anyone who has gotten this from the Reaper. (every other exp, yes!)
As for :
Proven myth. Your chances are the same. You can still kill it before explodes and not get a single weapon drop. You can also get exp weapons from it exploding.
Can you point me in the direction that actually confirms this?
hi all … i would just to like to know - what exactly affects drop rng of rivals (i mean their loot)? of course it should be their level - lvl4 best chance for good drop … but is it level of region of their occurrence as well? lets say - region xy has 7 active rival, and score of the region is 16 for example - i destroy the highest rival and region lvl goes down - that means drop rng % goes down as well on remaining lvl4 rivals ? … or everything what affect their loot is their lvl no matter on which level is the region
sorry for my idiotic sentence structure, english is not my native language
Rule of thumb - don’t die, don’t drag battle, don’t leave “unskinned” corpse for too long. That way you’ll get most loot.
If you ask for ammo - depends on what you have in the pockets, but I often had .50 BMG or less commonly 5.56mm without corresponding guns on me. In MP other’s “pockets” also seems to influence that.
Same discussion topics merged.
//Mod
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I have gotten numerous same/similar drops with/without it self killing and being killed. Even killed it prior to self detonation and got only ammo. Got double exp-weapons on a self detonation too. It has been deduced many times here on the Forum and even on Reddit.
Not sure if @Catalyst_Light pops on here anymore but he came to the same conclusion.
Have you had a different experience @AliasDJA?
Actually quite the opposite, though it was November I tried.
10 Reapers - 5 killed, all dropped experimental + big ammo drop
5 self detonated reapers - no weapons - minimal loot ( which I assumed changed because he blew himself him reducing the loot pool )
However, if I’m not mistaken - @SR_Carni also confirmed it doesn’t matter so I dunno to be fair. It’s all about the 5c M16 these days
I have killed it over 25+ times since release. Finally got Exp Hammer on a self-detonation with 12th one.
I personally have not seen any variance in drops between self-detonation and kills. I did however get sick of killing the Reaper and much rather hunt Rivals for US 5c weapons 
Neat thing was popping in after a hiatus to see how bad my controller drift got in multiple games and downing a Apoc Hunter and getting a 5c N9 on my first drop. (have not played new weapon pack, only purchased it when it came out)
Ive been fortunate with the reaper, and ive been frustrated with the reaper. Ive faced it a total of four times, twice solo and twice co-op. The solo occasions I got very little. I expected to get a pocket filling with hundreds of rounds and experimental/5 star guns. Instead I got thread, and crafting materials with a scanty amount of ammo. The second time on solo was a bit better with more ammo but still no guns I was looking for.
Now to the good part, co-op play. The first time he was downed I walked away with an experimental KVM and the second time I got the experimental rocket launcher (dont remember the name).
I am not saying that I got better loot because I was playing with someone else. I am just relaying that I was able to get experimental weapons from the fight. I would love to know if theres a more “tried and true” way to get the best possible loot. I feel there may not be though. and it could just be totally random.
Maybe one for @Aesyle could shed some light on.
Anyone ever done a complete loot drop list per machine?
I’m not sure exactly how the programming works, but could it be that the more you fight reapers, the more loot you get?
Loot from machines is RNG based and like i said above, loot is generated at the very moment you open the machine loot window (latter was said in one of the dev streams).
Thing with Reaper is, that you may get two 6* weapons or you may get one 6* weapon or you may not get any 6* weapons from it. All that is possible. Though, what i don’t know (and devs haven’t said), is if Reaper has higher chance for 6* weapons compared to other Rivals or not.
One could assume that since Reaper is end-game boss and it takes quite a bit of work to take one down, it could also have a higher chance for weapon drops. But it’s weapon drop chance could be same as other Rivals have it. And as long as devs doesn’t state it, we can only guess the weapon drop chance compared to other machines and other Rivals.
Here’s a good idea: in the next dev stream, someone can ask if Reaper has higher 6* weapon drop chance than level 4 rival.
Not that i know of. But you can always start building one. 
Here, i’ll even make the start easier:
Some weapon and attachments drops
KVM 59/89 + KVM 59/89 mag mods:
- 1* and 2* - Apo runner
- 3* and 4* - Apo hunter
- 5* - Apo tank
N9/16/60 + N9/16/60 mag mods:
- 1* - proto
- 2* (and 3*?) - mil
- 4* (and 3*?) - FNIX
- 5* - Apo
- N9 + N9 mag mod - hunter
- N16 + N16 mag mod - harv
- N60 + N60 mag mod - tank
Vanilla weapons + melee weapons:
- 1* - proto
- 2* and 3* - mil
- 4* and 5* - FNIX
Unique drops:
- 6* Sledgehammer - Reaper
- 1* SMG silencer - proto hunter (*)
- 2* SMG silencer - mil hunter (*)
(*) - all different class hunters can drop different quality SMG silencers, except maybe Apo hunter
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With all due respect to the authority as moderator and older player than me, I still will cling to my statement about “loot being spoiled” due to track record and statistics. With that argument arised, I’d like to test it out in depth, but likely happen when I get enough time and space on my hard drive.
This concept used to be part of the game in early days, where when you e.g shot off the machine’s weaponry, you didn’t get the ammo in the loot window. Destroy the vision array and you couldn’t get vision mods and so forth.
That concept was nice but it was removed in June '19 update, when “Machine Loot” came.
As far as Reaper specifically goes (or when to widen the scope, all machines), we, as players, can do more testing to see if loot does really change based on X,Y or Z factors. Or we can ask for devs directly for definitive answer (though, devs may not give us the answer).
Well, main factors are time and player’s skill to stay alive. Those are relevant to machines with high loot weight (harvs and tanks).
Draged out battle (see my 90 min “reaper vs hunting rifles” and it’s loot at the end) or if corpse left for too long.
I also noticed that if in a battle with getting killed, I am more likely to get an apparel or bicycle paint items instead of guns (even from lvl4 rival) and slightly less ammo in weight or less “practical” ammo (like getting pistol or hunting ammo instead of military grade).
…random drops can really fuel the fires of confirmation bias. 
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Could it be as simple as not getting killed in the battle to ensure successful drop?
Easy one to test …
Rather “getting best odds”.
As far as I know, the Reaper drops more loot if you kill him before he self destructs.
I still don’t get the basis of this whole destroy vs. self-destruct discussion.
What actual evidence do you have that a self-destruct Reaper death will grant lesser loot?
I have only destroyed 1 Reaper so far. It self-destructed, but still the loot was:
6* Experimental Sledgehammer
FOA Exosuit Helmet
32 EMP rounds
5000 rounds of various ammo
8 advanced medkits
1 grenade
Some rubber and adhesive.
Last night, right before I ended my session, my second Reaper appeared.
It will be exciting to see how the loot pool (and death) on that one turns out.
Still, I can’t fathom why the devs would implement that a self-destruct death would lower your chances of loot! It doesn’t make sense, no matter how you twist and turn it!
So first of all, why on earth would it be logical to have it this way?
Second, you have no way of controlling how the Reaper chooses to go out. Not that’s obvious at least.
Third, how can this ever grow beyond a guessing game? There is no way to confirm it, and I doubt the devs will ever publish their RNG % numbers…
As I said in my last comment and just like in other real-life events, a random occurrence can really bolster a person’s confirmation bias. Let’s say the Reaper loot pool is 100% random no matter what, but you go Reaper hunting confident that a kill shot gives you better loot than a self-destruct, what can happen? It is entirely possible that if you kill 10 Reapers, 5 of them are finished off and grant you good loot, while the other 5 self-destruct and give you poor loot. This might seem like confirmation in favor of the kill shots, but in reality it was all just random, and happened to align with the player’s expectations. To be honest, the odds for this result were even quite good.
Please, ask specifically about this in the next stream. No offense to the community manager, but my guess is that you would not even get a precise answer, though I could of course be wrong.
I will firmly keep believing Reaper loot is 100% random, until it’s been disproven or refuted by the devs. What Aesyle said here seems to me like like the sensible default position until shown otherwise.
Lastly, I will again point out what the game warned us about when approaching the Reaper:
It’s signature weapon, the
Thermobaric Attack, will either send
a wave or an explosion depending
on how close the machine is to
destruction. The wave can be
avoided by hiding behind cover, but
the explosion is trickier to deal with
and may require a final offensive
push before it goes off.
“The explosion”, as they call it, is an intended feature!
It would be ridiculous if they secretly meant for us to find a way to work around it… 
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