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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