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Thread: Is loot gone?
Game Guru I've had a few of those times where I was in Deep Space for hours and would end up with maybe 1 or 2 things. It happens, just frustrating when it does.
And to answer the other questions, yes, I have gotten drops in both Deep Space and Kessel since their last patch/hot fix.
As several of my guild mates and I farm parts almost to the point of obsession (we have 3 master shipwrights to feed), we've noticed that part drops can vary wildly from day to day among the various spawns.
The Mercenary Freighter and it's two Mercenary Cruiser escorts in Kashyyyk space (there are two sets of them that spawn repeatedly and instantly right at Kashyyyk station, and another that spawns near the Imperial Outpost) almost always drop parts. If you're farming simply for the sake of building up a ton of parts for selling to a broker or to RE junk till you get a set of KSE disks, these things drop parts virtually every kill, ranging from level 1 to 8, with a significant number of parts being in the level 6-8 range.
Tier 4 TIE Fighters generated from the duty missions of the Vortex trainer in Dearic, have a propensity to drop level 6, 8, and 10 engines. However, there are days where they drop virtually nothing at all, or nothing but garbage. You can usually tell several waves into the mission what kind of day it's gonna be.
The Tier 4 Black Suns from the Havoc trainer on Lok, have the greatest tendency to drop nice level 8 and 10 guns. But like the TIEs, they also have the tendancy to drop loads of garbage, or nothing at all. It does seem that if the TIEs aren't dropping, the Black Suns will, and vice versa. But that's not always the case.
Deep Space and Kessel can be the same way. It's almost like an all-or-nothing situation there. In all cases, it seems that the drop rate experiences are always similar among all our pilots on any given day. 4 or 5 of us might set out seperately to farm parts, and as we cycle through the various spawns to see what's dropping, each report similar findings. Rarely, one person will be getting phenomenal loot from Black Suns, and everyone else is getting garbage from them. That seems to be the exception, though.
Given the quirkiness of the spawns in Kessel and Deep Space (if someone destroys the ISD, for example, all Imperial spawns in the zone have the tendancy to despawn and not come back for hours), compared to the typical level of loot, you're usually better off trying duty missions to build up your stock of parts, or collecting certain parts to match what you want to RE for your own ship. Visit all three of your faction's tier 4 trainers and run a handful of waves to determine what's dropping today. You'll net more parts overall, in a shorter period of time, and typically net more useful or "elite" parts. I've gotten as many as 4 level 8 engines and 2 level 10s off the same TIE duty mission. Duty missions, contrary to popular belief, do have endpoints. They will always complete after the 5th "boss" wave, including a Duty Completion cash bonus. A duty can take anywhere from 45 mins to an hour and a half to complete, depending upon your skill as a pilot and the quality of your gear. My one guild mate, who's an outstanding pilot and flies an Advaced X-Wing with something like 45,000 DPS on the guns, can complete a duty in 45 mins or less, every time, and typically loots around 50 parts from a full duty.
If duty missions aren't for you, the Merc ships in Kashyyyk space have a drop rate of at least 90%, are very easily killed, and instantly respawn. Better yet, if you stay right on top of the Merc Freighter (the only one of the three with guns), it can't shoot you. Easy, but boring, parts farming. But don't expect a lot of exceptional loot from them.
There is actually a "no-loot" bug. I haven't had it for a while, but starting with Pub 18 (maybe 17) I would be able to go as long as50 to 100 kills and not get a damn thing. That is statistically improbable to say the least. The fact that I personally had it happen to me at least6 times convinced me that it is a rare bug, but a bug none the less. Since I hadn't been hit with this for two months I was hopeful that it was fixed. Guess not.
