how does the random loot selection work exactly?

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zerat00l
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Is there some upper limit on what gets dropped? etc etc. I know if I reload and kill something over and over, I'll eventually get the component I want in an undamaged state, but then I usually only want one component.
Or more to the point: if I continue to reload and kill the ICS over and over, will I ever get 4 armor segments? So far I've seen one and two dropped, and I know it has 36 segments, from reading the main menu...
(edit: just got 3 to generate. fortunately for armor being damaged is not too much of a concern. Still would like to know the odds so I have a grasp of how long this might take...)
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Aury
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you should be able to get 4 a bit less than 10% of the time (~7%?) I think, if it works like normal device drops. Then again, armor may not, so I'm not sure.
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zerat00l
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It could be that I'm just being unlucky, but it seems to be turning out much lower than that. I've had 3 spawn four times now, and I've run it about 100 times (and that is a conservative estimate)

And you know I won't get any of the usual stuff when it finally happens --edit: yeah called it on that one. Still, the armor was what I was going for, as it has the most utility in my setup.
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Wurmish
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Have you tried taking a look at the code for the ICS? The loot generation code should be in there. Armor is counted as a MinorItem I believe, so it will make more sense when you can read item tables.

Edit - I take that back. I just checked loot generation code in the main Transcendence XML. 70% of items will be missing, 20% damage, and only 10% will be in mint condition. So to find 4 armor segments... yeah that's probably insanely rare.
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Resident-Pyromaniac
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Doesn't seem to make sense to me. If The ICS has thirty six armor segments, Only about three to six of those would be destroyed by the player. the explosion might damage others, But They still exist. Why can't they be looted?
Another thought: I think once The ICS is destroyed, The sentinells should attempt to loot all it's stuff and run through the HD1911 stargate.
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rincewind
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I find the randomness of the game interesting. The current game I am playing I got 8 tons of pteracnium ore off the second centauri base. The next system gave me a laser collimator and a omniturbolaser. After that I didn't see decent loot till past rigel. I also wonder if the type of weapon you use affects the loot you get. I would imagine taking out a ICS with a fracture cannon would have different results then if you used a Ak30 canon. Not that you could take it out with a ak30 but you see the point.
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There is code in the engine that decrease the chance that armor will survive in proportion to the number of segments. I did this to decrease the amount of loot (lots of armor can be too profitable).

The formula is this:

Chance that armor seg will be destroyed = 100 - (100 / (1 + {total armor segments}))

This works out as follows:

1 segment = 50% chance of segment being destroyed
2 segments = 67%
4 segments = 80%
6 segments = 86%
8 segments = 89%
12 segments = 93%
24 segments = 96%
36 segments = 98%

I think in general this formula is OK, but the survival chance for 36 segments is probably too small. I might put a cap on the probability (e.g., chance should never exceed 95%).
zerat00l
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Cool! thanks!
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