Pickups are in-game objects that the player can collect by running near or over them, or in few cases by manually picking them up. They range from those useful on the current mission (ammunition, health) to resources and mods that can be later used and equipped.
Lootables
All lootable objects such as Storage Containers, and lootable corpses will all show up on the radar when equipped with the 
Thief's Wit, Loot Detector, and Animal Instinct mods.
- During Invasions, Spy mission vaults, and the Battle Damage/Self-Destruct Environmental Hazards, Butcher and Crewman corpses will appear depending upon the faction that owns the tileset; either the owner for Invasions and Hazards, or the opposite faction for Spy vaults (e.g. Butcher corpses in Corpus vaults). They can also spawn on specific parts of Earth.
- Storage lockers come in three types - green (openable), red (locked), and black (permanently locked/broken). Green lockers can be opened simply by interacting with them. Red lockers can be unlocked using the
Master Thief mod, a Kubrow with the Scavenge mod, or Hacking a nearby console with Master Key installed on your Parazon. Finally, black lockers can never be opened by any means. Lockers do not show up on the radar.
- Corpus and Grineer Caches in Sabotage missions also resemble storage lockers, though their lights are white, and the locker glows brightly whilst also emitting a low humming noise. These lockers do show up on the minimap.
- The four varieties of Storage Containers (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Reinforced) are 'opened' by force, dispensing loot when destroyed; they have very little HP and can be damaged by anything from melee strikes and gunfire to syndicate auras and Warframe abilities (Common and Uncommon containers have around 10 object health). The exact type of loot depends on the container type and area (lootables in hidden areas have a higher chance to yield rare resources, and mods up to rare in the Orokin Void).
- A unique variant of the Orokin container with red lights and smoke emitting from it will explode like an Explosive Barrel when destroyed.
- The Master Thief mod and Nekros's Desecrate ability are affected by pickup spawn patterns.
- Syndicate Medallions appear only in Syndicate missions, but do appear on the minimap (using the standard 'loot' icon).
Grineer Lootables
Corpus Lootables
Orokin Lootables
Sentient Lootables
Items
Containers and dispatched enemies all have a chance to drop ammunition packs. Packs are universal in the sense that all players are able to pick it up if they need that type of ammo. If a glowing vertical line is seen, but there is no ammo pack on the ground, it means the player has picked up the ammunition, but another party member has not. The ammo type is indicated based on the color and shape of the pack, and the quantity of ammunition received by a player depends on the type of weapon used and the weapon itself. Orbs provide Health, Energy, Affinity or something special.
Ammo
Picking up an ammo pack will refill only the ammo pool of their respective weapon. However, with the introduction of the ammo mutation mods in the Sling-Stone Event, one can convert different ammo packs as ammunition for the weapon equipped with one of these mods. The conversion will only happen if such modded weapon is equipped (not holstered) and the other weapon ammo is full (e.g. will not convert rifle ammo if your rifle ammunition is not full).
Drop Chances
Drop chances for all pickup variants.[1] These drop chances are independent from an enemy's loot drop table.
| Source | Pickup | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle Ammo | Pistol Ammo | Shotgun Ammo | Sniper Ammo | Heavy Ammo | |||||||
| Heavy Unit (e.g. Heavy Gunners, Corpus Techs, Ancient Disruptors) |
24.41% | 24.41% | 9.7% | 6.47% | 5.01% | ||||||
| Normal/Light Unit (e.g. Lancers, Crewmen, Chargers) |
26.29% | 26.29% | 10.45% | 6.97% | 0% | ||||||
Pistol
- Orange lighting.
- Refills 20 rounds of secondary ammo for regular weapons or 1.25 rounds per ammo mutation rank of converted ammo.
- Refills 10 rounds for "special" secondary weapons (e.g. hand-held grenade/rocket launchers)
- Pistol Scavenger increases the amount of pistol ammo recovered per drop.
Shotgun
- Green lighting.
- Refills 10 rounds of shotgun ammo or 2.5 rounds per ammo mutation rank of converted ammo.
- Shotgun Scavenger increases the amount of shotgun ammo recovered per drop.
Rifle
- Blue lighting.
- Refills 60 rounds of rifle ammo or 1.25 rounds per ammo mutation rank of converted ammo.
- Rifle Scavenger increases the amount of rifle ammo recovered per drop.
Sniper/Bow
- Purple lighting.
- Refills 10 rounds of sniper rifle ammo or arrows or 2.5 rounds per ammo mutation rank of converted ammo.
- Sniper Scavenger increases the amount of sniper/bow ammo recovered per drop.
Heavy
- Yellow lighting.
- Refills 1000 rounds of atmospheric Arch-gun ammo, or resets its cooldown when not equipped.
- Dropped by Terra Mankers that appear during Heists, as well as Bombards, Heavy Gunners, Napalms, Corpus Tech, Fusion MOAs, Oxium Ospreys, Ancients, Corrupted Ancients, and Corrupted Bombards during normal play.
Universal
- White lighting.
- Refills all ammo of all types.
- This type of ammo is not encountered in standard gameplay and only available in Arena missions, the Conclave or the Simulacrum.
- Exceptions are Lavos's Transmutation Probe and Protea's Dispensary.
- Exceptions are
- Not to be confused with the Omni Ammo Box gear.
Orbs
Energy
- Blue Energy Orbs come in two versions: small and large.
- Small Energy orbs refill 25 Energy. They are dropped by enemies.
- Small Energy orbs are also created by the following:
- Large Energy orbs refill 50 Energy. They are dropped from lockers and containers.
- Energy orbs are the most commonly dropped orb by probability.
Health
- Red Health Orbs refill 25 Health. They are dropped from lockers, containers, and certain enemies, including Drahks, Feral Kubrows, Hyekkas, and Feral Kavats.
- Health orbs are also created by the following:
- Nekros' Desecrate.
- Trinity's Pool of Life
- Protea's Dispensary – refills 100 Health
- Health orbs drop less frequently than other orbs.
- Health orbs also heal Companions.
Universal
- Lavos's Transmutation Probe turns Energy Orbs and Health Orbs into Universal Orbs, which restore 25 Energy and Health.
- Universal Orbs trigger both Energy Orb and Health Orb effects, including:
Sentient energy cores
- White orbs that are dropped by most Sentient drones.
- Instantly refills all Energy and Health of the Warframe who picked it up.
Affinity
- Yellow orbs grant 100 Affinity to the player's current equipment.
- Affinity granted is affected by boosters.
- These drop from lockers, containers and Kubrow Dens.
- Nav Coordinates are used to craft key items for The New Strange and Mutalist Alad V Assassinate Keys.
- These are often obtained from containers and by killing Drahks or Feral Kubrows.
- Can be fed to the Helminth to generate Bile.
Booster
- There are currently only two kinds of booster drops in the game, which are Credit and Affinity Boosters.
- They can only be found in Rare and Reinforced Storage Containers.
- Each one lasts either 30 or 60 minutes, depending on if it was obtained from a Rare or Reinforced container, respectively.
- The same appearance of this Orb is from Antiserum Injector Fragments, when dropping from enemies in Infested Salvage.
Other
Mods
- Main article: Mods
Modules are dropped by all enemy types. The drop rate is higher for heavy enemies and Bosses almost always drop at least one mod. Higher level enemies tend to drop higher ranked mods.
It is common courtesy for players to mark an uncommon or rare mod drop with a waypoint (default G ). If aimed correctly, the waypoint will mark the Mod for the team so that anyone can easily find it. Mods sparkle blue when they have not been picked up by all players in the squad. If a blue sparkle is seen, but there is no mod on the ground, it means the player has picked up the mod, but a party member has not. When Thief's Wit is equipped, mods are shown on the mini-map until the player has picked them up – it no longer shows mods uncollected by other team members.
Rare mods can be identified by the golden light beam produced.
Blueprints
- Blueprints can be dropped by several bosses, assassins or heavy units. Notably, Eximus units and Manics have a chance to drop Oberon and Ash parts respectively(Pre- U30).
- As of Update 13.0 (2014-04-09), blueprints are marked with a purple beacon light.
- After Update 15.0 (2014-10-24), blueprints were given their own model.
Sigils
- Sigils can be dropped by some Bosses, (Shadow) Stalker, Zanuka Hunter, The Grustrag Three and the Leaping Thrasher. These share the same model as Blueprints but have a blue beacon light instead.
Life Support Modules
Life Support Modules are dispensed from dead enemies in Survival missions. Each module restores 4.67%, or 7 seconds, of the total life support when picked up. They are automatically marked with a yellow marker which is invisible while zooming.
Resources
- Main article: Resources
Resources are dropped by containers and enemies. The drop rate varies with the type of resource. Resource drops are uncommon when compared to other drops. The type of resources available depends on the location on the star map. Each area on the Star Chart has at least 4 resources available with a different rarity on their chance to drop. When Thief's Wit is equipped, resource drops are shown on the mini-map if any party member hasn't picked up it up yet.
Rare resources are green in color and have slight glow to make them easier to detect.
Additional "research" resources can be found for use in Clan Research, such as Detonite Ampule, Fieldron Sample and Mutagen Sample. These resources are blue in color in-game and only drop in quantities of 1.
Credits
- Main article: Credits
- Credits are dropped by lockers, containers, and enemies.
- Nearby credits will stack together to form piles.
- Depending on the size of the stack, the quantity can range from 10 credits to 300 credits.
- Credits collected by any Tenno are shared with the group.
Ayatan treasures
Ayatan Stars come in two different colours: cyan, less rare, and orange, rarer. They can only be found by destroying canisters or opening lockers, and differently from most of other resources have to be picked up manually picked up using the action key. They are also automatically marked in the HUD. Ayatan Sculptures can be randomly found in the Tile Set in specific locations, with a higher chance of spawing in the Infested Salvage mission. Like the stars, they need to be manually picked up.
Medallions
Syndicate Medallions are pickups only available in Syndicate alert missions. These pickups can be converted to Syndicate Standings when turned in to the Syndicate representatives in Relays. They are not auto-picked up when walked over and have to be manually picked up using the action key.
Endo
- Main article: Endo
Endo is a special resource that is used for Fusion, the process of upgrading mods. They are dropped by almost all enemies, in groups of 15, 30, or 80, but the game uses the mod drop chance of an enemy instead of the resource drop chance to determine its drop. In other words, Endo will drop in the place where a mod would drop.
Pigments
- Main article: Pigment
Pigments are special resources that are used for researching Clan Dojo colors in the Tenno Lab. Each color pigment has an associated enemy, and will only drop if a color is being researched. The frequency of pigment drops and the number of pigments in each drop varies per color from 1 to 10.
Granum Crowns
- Main article: Granum Crown
Only dropped by Treasurers in Corpus Ship Tile Set after completing The Deadlock Protocol Quest. They come in three different versions depending on the mission level, and like Ayatan treasures and Medallions they require to be manually picked up. They can be used to enter the Granum Void or rescue Solaris prisoners inside of the ship.
Drop Chances
Pickups have various drop chances across enemy types and crates.[2] These drop chances are independent from an enemy's loot drop table.
| Source | Pickup | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle Ammo | Pistol Ammo | Shotgun Ammo | Sniper Ammo | Heavy Ammo | |||||||
| Heavy Unit | 24.41% | 24.41% | 9.7% | 6.47% | 5.01% | ||||||
| Normal/Light Unit | 26.29% | 26.29% | 10.45% | 6.97% | 0% | ||||||
| Sniper Unit | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ||||||
| Common Crates | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ||||||
| Uncommon Crates | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ||||||
| Source | Pickup | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affinity Orb | Energy Orb | Health Orb | Small Credits | Medium Credits | Large Credits | ||||||
| Heavy Unit | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | |||||
| Normal/Light Unit | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | |||||
| Sniper Unit | 0% | 10.85% | 0% | 7.26% | 6.32% | 0.57% | |||||
| Common Crates | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | |||||
| Uncommon Crates | 13.78% | 13.78% | 13.78% | 0% | 58.67% | 0% | |||||
Notes
- All pickups are individual instances per player. If one player picks up an item, it will only disappear for that player while other players can collect their instances at their leisure.
- The exception for this is Empyrean, where pickups are distributed across the entire squad.
- If any materials fall off the tile, they are treated like any other entity and will often (albeit rather unreliable) be teleported back to their original position.
Trivia
- Developers often replace Corpus Canisters with special skins during festival events, most notably during Easter, Halloween, and Christmas (when Corpus Canisters were changed to Easter eggs, pumpkins, and Christmas presents, respectively).
- In the Dog Days Tactical Alert, ammo pickups have the appearance of water vents, aesthetically matching the Soaktron water gun.
- Prior to Update 15.0 (2014-10-24), blueprint pickups resembled pink orbs.
- The old energy orb model can still be seen in the Sahasa Kubrow entry in the Codex.
References
Patch History
Hotfix 27.3.15 (2020-04-17)
- Fixed a script error that could occur when joining a mission in progress while someone is opening a locker.
Hotfix 25.7.4 (2019-09-05)
- Fixed picking up Heavy Weapon Ammo showing "|NAME| cooldown reset".
Update 25.0 (2019-05-22)
- Heavy Ammo now drops from Bombards, Heavy Gunners, Napalms, Corpus Tech, Fusion Moas, Oxium Ospreys, Ancients, Corrupted Ancients, and Corrupted Bombards.
Hotfix 24.2.6 (2018-12-20)
- Corpus Lockers/Caches that can be opened now display a holographic symbol to indicate such. Corpus Lockers/Caches without the holographic symbol cannot be opened.
- This change comes from vocal feedback regarding the unlock/locked visual changes to Corpus Lockers, and the conflict between the lack of contrast.
Update 24.2 (2018-12-18)
- Replaced old Corpus lockers of various types with shiny new and improved Corpus lockers on numerous tilesets.
Update 22.0 (2017-10-12)
- (Undocumented) Added an innate 3 m pickup radius for Warframes and Operators when on foot
Hotfix 19.5.1 (2016-12-22)
- Conclave: Fixed script error with pickups
Hotfix: The Index Preview 2 (2016-10-21)
- Increased the mass of Reactant, Index Points drops, and Raptor’s Energy cells so that they don't roll around as much.
- Excluded Reactant and Index Point pickups from Simulor, Inaros' Sandstorm, Zephyr Tornado, and Vauban's Vortex. This also fixes the exception lists for the Simulor; it wasn't supposed to be moving gameplay objects (eg Datamass, Excavation Power Cells, Raptor Cells, etc) but it generally wasn't of a problem because the objects were heavy enough (properly excluding them should run faster too!). As more and more gameplay components rely on pickups, we've addressed this issue as it is commonly discussed by you all.
Update 15.0 (2014-10-24)
- Colour Blind Locker changes
All in-game lockers have a new representation of being locked or unlocked. This new representation focuses on symbols and shapes to be accessible to our colour blind players.
- Pickup changes
- Added new icons to correspond with pickups! You will now see icons representing all pick-ups at the bottom of the screen!
Update 9.6 (2013-08-16)
- Mods and Blueprints will never expire as drops.
