I guess it's pretty much pure luck.
And of course, stronger enemies drop strong weapons.

I think it is up to your level. An enemy ship will never drop a higher level gun than you can equip not on your ship, but to buy on a base or planet. It's the same as a Nomad gun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
A talking pig.
Pigs can’t talk.
Neither can penguins, but I can’t shut him up[[! Wait till you get a load of the dancing candelabra…

Yeah, i know its anal but i would like to see some figures for weapons dropped. As it seems to be a fact that there is a threshold for the nomads and/or an increasing percentage chance, it makes sense a similar scheme is in operation for the other weapons.
Surely it must be in one of .ini's people have decoded? Anyone got any idea?

Redeye,

I haven't noticed that some factions seem to drop more weapons than others, but I have found that when you really plaster an enemy ship (guns & missles) you tend to blow up whatever they were going to drop as well.

Hessians in Dresden and Mollys in Dublin always drop things and it's in accordance with whatever they generally have mounted. The same goes for cargo, sometimes they drop good stuff (diamonds, artifacts, etc.) and other times it's just bats and bots or some lame cargo like scrap or oxygen.

Find their secret trade routes. You'll find plenty of valuable cargo there.

For instance the jumpholes in the independent systems. Several ships dropped diamonds in Hudson and Bering.

RadiologistRebooted, you are wrong. Or I understand you wrongly.

You CAN loot higher level guns than you are able to buy.

Gnavpot,

There are 3 things that affect the ability to purchase a gun:

- mountable hardpoint on your ship: you can't buy a Class 7 gun for a Class 6 ship

- the reputation with the fraction you're buying from - you need to be friendlier to buy higher class guns.

- your current level. Higher class weapons require a minimun level before you can purchase the weapon.

When trying to loot guns off enemy ships, they will not drop a gun if their lowest class gun has a higher level requirement than your current level. For instance, a Corsair Centurian will never drop a gun until you're at least level 22 or so (smallest gun on a Centurian is the Angelito mkIII, a Class 7 gun)

@Lonewolf

Sweet, that explains alot. I assume then that the reason there is a threshold for getting the nomads to drop is because if you were to buy them there would be a level requirement? Do you know what level that is? (i know its roughly 30 but it really bugs me not to know for sure..)