I think this is a great idea. Having the ammo loot also based on this finite cache also creates a time-sensitive gameplay mechanic. The longer you take to fight the less potential loot you could receive.
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Being that admins in this forum like to merge threads, I decided to resurrect this thread. 
Has ammo limited bots been considered?
It is no secret we see ammo boxes (with 99mm written on it) with dropped Hunter guns. We see ammo boxes on Tank guns.
An A-10 Warthog (US military plane) can hold 1,350 of 173mm length ammo. Helicopters with the Gatling canons people shoot with hold about 3000 rounds of 7.62x51mm ammo.
Why not put a limit of a few thousand or few hundred rounds? I doubt we would rarely see a Hunter run out of ammo, but if it did, it would either 1) Run away, 2) Run to a Harvester to “reload” and come back after you.
Or introduce the…ammo supply robot! Imagine a squarish robot (like a Borg cube) with a constant escort. It would have heavy armor (say triple or quadruple the life of an Apoc Tank) on 4 or 6 legs or tank treads but no weaponry. You see robots coming at this ammo bot to replenish themselves. It would take a ridiculous amount of ammo to crack this robot (1500-2000 rounds of ONLY AP and have no soft spots), but once you crack it, you will have ammo spilling out of your ears…if you are lucky. 
And it would only contain ammo. No mines or grenades or other nonsense that robots do not use. Only bullets and m/49 ammo and a maybe a bunch of metal.
I would consider it an interesting mechanic seeing robots having to replenish ammo instead of thinking they have ammo teleported into their ammo boxes. Can you imagine trying to chase down an ammo bot still trying to destroy it, but it feels uncrackable, and it keeps calling in for reinforcements? Some may say well that sounds like a Harvester, but Harvesters carry different drops with them and are armed, and they are easy to kill. An ammo bot I would never let it drop special weaponry. It would only drop ammo.
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This is such a brilliant idea!
Imagine finally destroying one, and then having to make several trips to your Plundra to stash looted ammo before salvage units arrive!
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Yes! And maybe not just salvage units. Robots needing to resupply would keep using the dropped ammo until it runs out.
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I think we’re on to something here! 
Let’s say there’s only one AmmoBot per district, moving and spawning randomly within its borders. They should’t be trackable either, finding one should be pure ”luck”.
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I’m okay with the increased lethality of the machines, but it doesn’t make sense that (especially single player mode) I can run out of ammo/supplies but the enemy has an unlimited supply of ammo! Reality aside; they can’t possibly carry that much munitions.
In addition; besides making the game more realistic; it provides a new set of tactics–everything from counting missiles fired by a Tank, to strategically waiting-out the machine as it depletes its supplies.
It could also force depleted machines to head for a depot for resupply.
If I am forced to find ammo because I physically can’t carry an unlimited amount–so should the machines…
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It’s the game balancing.
Players can heal themselves at any given point - machines can’t. (Except Rival when it levels up.) Same is with reviving, players can revive themselves with adrenaline shot - machines can’t. Moreover, players can Fast Travel to any unlocked safehouse to escape machines. Machines can’t Fast Travel at all.
So, to balance it out, machines need to have something that players can’t have, and why not unlimited ammo.
If machines would have limited ammo then i expect that they also revive themselves within 5 seconds and also heal their HP back to max, just like players can do.
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The problem with limited munitions for the AI is, they’d dump it all at once. Especially given the AI seems to be bugged at the moment, and is spamming attacks.
It would be trivial to cheese machines into emptying their ammo reserves, and then killing them off with relative ease.
Used to be, their attack patterns were slow enough that you wouldn’t really think about how they should be running dry as the fight progresses.
That said, the hunter pods should probably be capped (unless they’re supposed to have a long cooldown.)
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I totally agree. The enemy should have limited ammo and could have several depots over the islands that they could retrieve. or something could fly in and replenish them and give us a chance to blow the crap out of that as well. It can be worked into the schematics. I like the idea of counting missiles as part of our strategy
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How about balance as the machines outnumber player 100000:1?
How about balance when they spawn like mad?
How about balance when they produce ticks in numbers that exceed the weight of the hunter by a multitude?
How about machine’s fire precision that is never less than 100% ever since latest “update”?
Machines have plenty of things player hasn’t, so the mentioned argument is invalid. When a mech can produce a never ending strings of ticks then it can also take a break every 100 rounds to miraculously restock on ammo.
Discussions about “muh realizm” are mute as there is no realism in the game anyway. Doggos accelerate and break as if inertia has never been invented, hunters stay on their feet even their center of gravity is at the top, tanks happily lift one leg without shifting weight (or falling over), .44 rounds have a bullet drop across 100 yards as if they’ve been propelled by an old rubber-band, ticks jump into Buck- and Birdshots and nothing happens, and, and, and … there, plenty of room for an ammo-producing timeout.
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This would require almost simulator style of game play, huge revamp of game mechanics.
Exact simulation of machine functions, etc.
But like in extended long fights machines just leaving for so called refit or repairs after you have destroyed their weapons.
For the game wise, i like how the mechanics of spawning are right now. Thou would love to see in future more dynamic fights. Like machines congest ares for their reason, and that would create dangerous areas around map. Rivals starting to hunt down players, etc.
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They do now. 1. I’ve seen packs of dogs David Copperfield in front of me. 2. There’s not much of a CD in hunter sky drops too. Not to mention I’ve seen dead harvs call in a hunter pack long after they died. 3. Plus seekers now call the entire region so your location turns into a slug fest.
Maybe they should have a mode where there’s a CD on healz, but on the flipside the machines are using unlimited ammo either.
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So why don’t you disarm them?
You will have the facility to destroy them.
In all cases the disarmed machine you can flee from him and of course, meet him later in the state that you disarmed him.
After I do not know your level of play but if you are a beginner, the advice is to dodge them for the moment. history of having better weapons.
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Unless they create a repair robot.
Initially I loved the idea of the machines fast traveling, but I think they do that now. I guess I’d vote to keep them ‘real’
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A bit off topic, but as a challenge I’ve been going around blowing off the weapons, except the sword, from the rival hunters. Just curious what will happen to them over time. Without weapons except melee i’m not sure how they will behave
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I have done it successfully with the class of tanks, but not the harvesters - end up blowing them up completely. Right - we’d just have stunted machines running around and no new enemies!
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That sounds like a good idea. It would add a lot to the game.
On the one side surely it’d be realistic to limit the ammount of ammo on the bots, BUT let’s have a look at how that’d change the game.
Option A: The limit is tiny and the machines constantly run out of ammo within seconds of a fight, leading to the machines more or less going berserk into meele, something that Runners and hunters do on their own already at times. Also running out of ammo would make any harvester about as dangerous as a tipped over cow. And in the end we’d find no ammo on the bots, because they fired it all away, and the next step would be that we find no ammo around or barely because the bots are looting and reforging it for their own needs. and back to meele we go.
Option B: The limit is way too high and you’d have to spent hours on end dodging and evading attacks before bots run out of ammo. So you either fight them like today where they shoot you until they die or you hide behind some cover, go out of the house do some shopping, prepare a nice meal, have a talk with friends and in the evening return to watch the machines shooting off their last bullets to then kill them, but is that still playing the game? and fun?
Option C: The limit is just perfect, Machines drop lots of ammo when killed early but tend to run out of ammo in intense and longer battles just like a player with 20KG worth or equiptment … but where is that ‘golden balance’? Is it worth the trouble to put a system into the game that you may not see or feel active at times?
Summary / TLDR: I think that giving machines limited ammo would be too much trouble than what it’d be worth. In the end Generation Zero is an action FPS with rpg aspects and not a post apocalyptic horror survival simulator. But in the spirit of guerilla warfare, maybe sometimes machines are spawned as ‘out of ammo’ potentially on their way for rearmament who are obviously an easyer target.