Pickups are in-game objects that the player can collect by running near or over them, or in few cases by manually interacting with them (default: X ). They range from those useful on the current mission (ammunition, health) to resources and mods that can be later used and equipped.
Lootables
Most lootable objects such as Storage Containers, Caches, and lootable corpses (but not lockers) will all show up on the minimap within the range of the player's Loot Radar.
- 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
Ammo Pickup refers to how much ammo is obtained from pickups.
Area of Effect Weapons tend to have lower base Ammo Pickup than normal.
Drop Chances
Chance to drop Primary or Secondary Ammo scales with squad size[1]:
- 1 player squad = 45%, or 60% in Landscapes
- 2 player squad = 37.5%, or 52.5% in Landscapes
- 3 player squad = 30%, or 45% in Landscapes
- 4 player squad = 22.5%, or 37.5% in Landscape
Eximus are guaranteed to drop either a Primary or Secondary Ammo, each having the same chance of dropping.
Primary
- Purple lighting.
- Refills primary ammo based on the weapon type:
- 80 for rifles, Continuous Weapons, and crossbows.
- 60 for spearguns.
- 40 for automatic shotguns.
- 15 for semi-automatic shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and bows.
Secondary
- Orange lighting.
- Refills secondary ammo based on the weapon type:
- 40 for most secondaries.
- 20 for shotgun sidearms.
Heavy
- Yellow lighting.
- Refills 1000 rounds of atmospheric Archgun ammo, or resets the Archweapon Deployer cooldown when not equipped.
- Has a 5.01% chance to drop from Bombards, Heavy Gunners, Napalms, Corpus Tech, Fusion MOAs, Oxium Ospreys, and all Ancients.[2]
- Guaranteed to drop by Terra Mankers that appear during Profit-Taker Orb fight.
Universal Ammo Pack
- Blue lighting with red or blue accents.
- Refills 1x Ammo Pickup of all weapon types, but does not reset Archweapon Deployer cooldown.
- This type of ammo is not encountered in standard gameplay and only available in Arena missions, the Conclave or the Simulacrum. In these situations, the pickup will have blue accents.
- Exceptions are Lavos's Transmutation Probe and Protea's Dispensary. These pickups are smaller and will have red accents.
- Not to be confused with the Omni Ammo Box gear.
Increasing Ammo From Pickups
All ammo types have a corresponding Aura mod; these are the scavenger mods, which can be equipped to increase the amount of ammo received when picking up an ammo pack.
All weapons can equip a mutation mod for their respective ammo type. Ammo mutation mods convert the ammo packs of other weapon types into those for the active weapon, as long as the other ammo pool is full.
Sources of Ammo
3 75 |
Dispensary Deploys a device that generates 3 pickups after a short delay: empowered health orb, universal ammo pack and energy orb. Introduced in Update 28.0 (2020-06-11) |
Strength:10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % (extra pickup drop chance) | |
Duration:10 / 15 / 20 / 25 s | |||
Range:N/A | |||
Misc:
2 s (pickup spawn interval) | |||
Subsumable to Helminth |
3 10 |
Transmutation Probe Launch a probe that converts Health and Energy Orbs into Universal Orbs that provide both, and ammo pickups into Universal Ammo Pickups. The probe shocks enemies in close proximity. Each electrocuted foe reduces other ability cooldowns by one second. Hold to imbue the next ability cast with Electricity. Introduced in Update 29.6 (2020-12-18) |
Strength:100 / 150 / 200 / 250 /s ( Electricity damage per second) 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 /s (imbued elemental damage per second) | |
Duration:N/A | |||
Range:3 / 4 / 5 / 6 m | |||
Efficiency:
1.5 s (Cooldown Reduction per enemy shocked) | |||
Misc:
15 m/s (probe speed) |
Orbs
Energy Orb
- Blue Energy Orbs come in two versions: small and large.
- Small Energy Orbs refill 25 Energy. They are dropped by enemies.
- Dagath's Abundant Abyss Passive has a 35% chance to increase Energy Orb effectiveness by 300%, boosting this amount to 100.
- Amber Archon Shard ( Tauforged) can increase Energy Orb effectiveness by +50% (+75% Tauforged), boosting this amount to 37 (43).
- Small Energy Orbs are also created by the following:
- Citrine's Fractured Blast
- Ember's Exothermic
- Gara's Spectrosiphon
- Hildryn's Aegis Storm
- Nova's Passive
- Protea's Dispensary
- Trinity's Pool of Life
- Voruna's Lycath's Hunt
- Dethcube's Energy Generator
- Broken Scepter interacting with robotic corpses
- Glaxion's Photon Overcharge
- Certain abilities, arcanes, and mods apply effects upon picking up an Energy Orb:
- Large Energy Orbs refill 50 Energy. They are dropped from lockers and containers as well as Eximus enemies.
- Energy Orbs are the most commonly dropped orb by probability.
Health Orb
- Red Health Orbs refill 50 Health. They are dropped from lockers, containers, and enemies.
- Dagath's Abundant Abyss Passive has a 35% chance increase Health Orb effectiveness by 300%, boosting this amount to 200.
- Amber Archon Shard ( Tauforged) can increase Health Orb effectiveness by +100% (+150% Tauforged), boosting this amount to 100 (125).
- Health Orbs are also created by the following:
- Citrine's Fractured Blast
- Dagath's Grave Spirit
- Nekros' Desecrate
- Nezha's Blazing Chakram and Reaping Chakram
- Nova's Passive
- Oberon's Reckoning
- Protea's Dispensary – refills 100 Health
- Trinity's Pool of Life
- Voruna's Lycath's Hunt
- Created by a Sentinel/MOA (Companion) equipped with Synth Deconstruct.
- Broken Scepter interacting with organic corpses.
- Two Health Orbs are guaranteed to drop from Eximus units.
- Certain abilities, arcanes, and mods apply effects upon picking up a Health Orb:
- Health Orbs drop less frequently than other orbs.
- Health Orbs also heal Companions.
Universal Orb
- 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 Orb
- 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, Void Fissure enemies have a chance to drop Harrow Chassis blueprints.
- 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, 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.[3] 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% | |||||
Eximus | 0% | 100% | 200% (2x Health orbs) | 0% | 0% | 100% | |||||
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.
Patch History
Update 37.0 (2024-10-02)
- Added the Health and Energy Orb icons next to the “Health/Energy Full” notification in the HUD when walking over Orbs to better communicate to new players why they aren’t being picked up.
Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)
- Buffs or mechanics that are triggered upon Health or Energy Orb pickup can now be triggered if your Health or Energy pools are at max. This includes Mods like Equilibrium!
- If your buffs are fully stacked, you will no longer pick up these Orbs at max Health/Energy.
Update 32.2 (2022-11-30)
- Increased Health gained from Orbs from 25 to 50.
- This applies to the two guaranteed Health Orbs that are dropped from Eximus Units.
- The empowered Health Orbs generated by Protea’s Dispensary remain the same (100 Health per Orb).
- Lavos’ Transmutation Probe’s Universal Orbs remain the same (25 Health per Orb).
- Ammo pickups have a brand new look!
- Increased the beam on pickups to improve visibility.
- Fixed the “X Energy Gained” UI indicator at the bottom of the screen on Energy Orb pickups only ever showing 25 Energy regardless of the actual amount.
Update 31.5 (2022-04-27)
- Fixed auto pickups (Energy pickups, Mods, and anything you only need to move into to pick up) not being picked up while in midair.
- Fixed slight orange FX and irregularities on the Health pick-up orb.
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.
References
- ↑ Update 32.0 (2022-09-07) patch notes
- ↑ https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1100191-ask-me-almost-anything-again/?do=findComment&comment=10814226
- ↑ vaur06 (2019, June 9). Q: What is the drop rate on energy and health orbs?. Warframe Forums. Accessed 2022-07-02. Archived from the original on 2022-07-02. A comment that summarized the Q&A with [DE]Glen.
See Also