Item Drops And Pickups

Overview

The pickup system has three spawn sources:

1. Pre-placed pickups — spawned at level load in designated spawn points, scaled by difficulty and player count

2. Need-based spawns — driven by Necessity Calculators that evaluate what the team needs most and spawn items accordingly during gameplay

3. Enemy death drops — controlled by the PICKUPSPAWNFROM_ENEMIES flag (stratagem modifier) and the NPC pickup spawn handler. These are not available in PvE unless specific modifiers are enabled in Stratagems Mode.

Players can manipulate the Item Drop system to get desired items, like stims. Stims are most likely to drop when:

• Team health is low (below 20% = max necessity score 5)

• No existing stim pickup within 25m (no proximity penalty)

• 3.5+ minutes since last necessity-spawned stim (cooldown expired)

• Lower difficulty (higher target replenishment %)

• At a checkpoint (necessity bonus applied, min 1 stim guaranteed except Lethal)

• Mutator active that boosts PICKUP_NECESSITY for heals

• The PveMutatorEnemiesToEquipment stratagem is active (enemies can drop stims on death)

And Stims are less likely to drop when:

• Team health is above 80% (necessity drops to 2, which may lose to ammo/equipment scores)

• Stim pickup already exists within 25m (proximity penalty)

• Less than 3.5 minutes since last necessity stim spawn (on cooldown)

• Higher difficulty (lower target replenishment — Lethal is 8%)

• Difficulty 5/Lethal: zero pre-placed stims, zero checkpoint minimum

• Solo play (0.33x player count multiplier on pre-placed counts)

• Other pickup types have higher necessity scores (ammo at 0% has score 5 and no cooldown, competes with stims)

The stim cooldown of 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) is the single biggest limiter. Even if your team is at 0% health, the system won't spawn a necessity stim if one was spawned less than 3.5 minutes ago. This is why stims can feel scarce in prolonged fights — the cooldown gate is strict.

Pre-Placed Pickups

These are the pickups placed in the level at the start of a game area. Counts are scaled by difficulty and player count.

Default (Operations) Mode

Note: The Usable Ammo Crate has a difficulty multiplier of 0x at all difficulties in the spawn-on-start configuration. Ammo crates are placed by level design, not by the spawn count system.

Note: At difficulty 5 (Lethal), stim pre-placement drops to 0 — no stims are pre-placed in the level. Players rely entirely on the necessity system and enemy drops.

Horde Mode Overrides

Player Count Scaling (Global Default)

Solo players get only a third of the pickups. Real players only (realPlayersOnly = True — bots don't count).

Difficulty Scaling (Global Default)

The Necessity System

Each pickup type that can dynamically spawn has a Necessity Calculator that outputs a score. Higher scores mean the team needs that item more. The pickup manager uses these scores to decide what to spawn when a spawn opportunity arises (e.g., enemy death, checkpoint, respawn timer).

How Necessity Scores Are Calculated

Each calculator evaluates team state and outputs a score from 0 to 5 via a spline. The pickup manager compares scores across all pickup types and spawns the one with the highest necessity. Multiple factors modify the final score:

1. Team state — the raw need (health, ammo, armor, equipment levels)

2. Proximity penalty — if a similar pickup already exists nearby, the score is reduced (prevents stacking)

3. Cooldown — some pickup types have a minimum time between necessity spawns

4. Difficulty bonus — at checkpoints, higher difficulties get a bonus to necessity scores (more likely to spawn needed items)

5. Mutator modifiers — stratagem modifiers can add flat bonuses to necessity scores (e.g., PICKUP_NECESSITY bonus of +2)

Medical Item (Stim) Necessity

This is the calculator that determines when healing items spawn.

Team Health Score (necessityByTeamHealth):

The system looks at total team health. When the team is below 20% health, stim necessity is at max urgency (score 5). It stays elevated at score 2 until the team is fully healed, and only drops to 0 when health exceeds 200% (possible with overshield mechanics).

Additional parameters:

• healthPerHealingItem = 50 — each stim is valued at 50 HP for the necessity calculation

• abilitySlot = "INJECTOR" — tracks the injector ability slot

• cooldown = 210 (from the SwappableHeal spawn desc) — 3.5 minute minimum between necessity-driven stim spawns

• useProximityNecessityPenalty = True, searchRadius = 25 — won't spawn if a stim already exists within 25m

• scannerTag = "SwappableHeal" — scans for existing stim pickups in the area

Difficulty scaling for stim target replenishment (targetReplenishmentByDifficulty):

This "target replenishment" represents the % of maximum stims the system tries to keep available. On Minimal, it tries to keep half the team's stim slots full. On Lethal, it aims for only 8%.

Stim type weights when a stim does spawn:

• equipmenthealinginjector — weight 2 (twice as likely)

• equipmenthealingstim — weight 1

Ammo Necessity

Ammo Level Score (necessityByAmmo):

Ammo necessity never drops to 0 — even at full ammo, there's a baseline score of 1.

Additional parameters:

• Tracks both PRIMARY and SECONDARY weapon ammo

• secondaryWeightMod = 55 — secondary ammo counts at 55% weight vs primary

• useProximityNecessityPenalty = True, searchRadius = 20 — won't spawn if an ammo pickup exists within 20m

• scannerTag = "UsableAmmoCrate" — scans for nearby ammo crates

• cooldown = 0 — no cooldown between ammo necessity spawns (can always spawn)

Armor Boost Necessity

Missing Team Armor Score (necessityByMissingTeamArmor):

• cooldown = 60 — 60 second minimum between armor booster spawns

• Difficulty scaling: 80% target at difficulties 0-2, drops to 33% at difficulties 3-4

Equipment (Grenade/Melta/Stim) Necessity

Equipment Level Score (necessityByEquip):

• abilitySlot = "ROUTINE" — tracks the routine equipment slot (grenades, melta charges, etc.)

• cooldown = 30 — 30 second minimum between equipment spawns

• Equipment types spawn with equal weight: frag, shock, krak grenades, melta charge, and combat stimulants all weight 1

Stratagem Modifiers

PveMutatorEnemiesToEquipment

• Enables PICKUPSPAWNFROM_ENEMIES flag — enemies drop pickups on death

• Disables pre-placed spawns for: Ammo Refill, Swappable Equip, Swappable Heal, Armor Refill, Dynamic Reward

• Shifts the game from pre-placed pickups to enemy-drop-driven economy

PveMutatorNoAmmoCratesMoreAmmoRefills

• Doubles ammo refill spawn amount (+100% PERCENT_MULT)

• Adds +2 flat bonus to ammo necessity score

• Same treatment for equipment: +100% spawn amount, +2 necessity

• Removes ammo crate pre-placement

PveMutatorBuffPickUp (Temporal Boost)

• Enables PICKUPSPAWNTEMPORAL_BOOST flag

• Temporal boosts are auto-pickup, apply TemporalBoost status effect

• See findings/systems/temporal-boost.md for details on what temporal boost does and enemy death drop rates

Respawn Rules

When pickups are consumed, the respawn handler can replenish them. Each type has min/max respawn amounts:

Checkpoint Replenishment

At checkpoints, the system ensures minimum pickup counts and applies a difficulty-based necessity bonus:

Minimum pickup counts at checkpoints:

Necessity Bonus by Difficulty (necessityBonusByDifficulty):

On higher difficulties, the necessity bonus is higher, meaning the system is more generous about spawning what you need at checkpoints. This partially compensates for the reduced pre-placed counts and lower target replenishment values.

What Each Pickup Gives

From lootableobjectslibrary.sso:

Game Files

Core System

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickup_manager.sso — Central pickup manager

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupsdesclibrary.sso — Default pickup spawn descriptions (base counts, necessity calculators, weights)

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupsdesclibrary_hordemode.sso — Horde mode overrides

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupsdesclibrary_story.sso — Story mode overrides

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupsdesclibrary_pvp.sso — PvP mode overrides

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupsdesclibrarytacteam.sso — Tactical team overrides

• ssl\lootablesystem\lootableobjects_library.sso — Master loot descriptions (what each pickup gives)

• ssl\lootablesystem\lootableobjects_category.sso — Loot categories

Necessity Calculators (Need-Based Spawning)

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\necessitycalculators\pickupnecessitycalculatorbase.sso — Base calculator with difficulty scaling

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\necessitycalculators\pickupnecessitycalculatormedical_item.sso — Stim/healing necessity

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\necessitycalculators\pickupnecessitycalculatorammo.sso — Ammo necessity

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\necessitycalculators\pickupnecessitycalculatorarmor_booster.sso — Armor necessity

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\necessitycalculators\pickupnecessitycalculatorequip.sso — Equipment/grenade necessity

Spawn Influencers

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupcountinfluencers\pickupcountdifficulty_influencer.sso — Difficulty scaling for spawn counts

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupcountinfluencers\pickupcountplayers_influencer.sso — Player count scaling

Handlers

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupmanagerrespawn_handler.sso — Respawn rules per pickup type

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupmanagercheckpoint_handler.sso — Checkpoint replenishment rules

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupmanagernpcpickupsspawn_handler.sso — Enemy death drop configuration

• ssl\lootablesystem\pickupsmanager\pickupmanagerstashablepickupshandler.sso — Stashable pickup handler

Mutators (Stratagem Modifiers)

• ssl\player\mutators\gamemutatorsfactory.sso — Contains PveMutatorEnemiesToEquipment (enemy death drops) and PveMutatorBuffPickUp (temporal boosts)