Non-Cryo / non-prestige keys are not worth the risk and should have consistently better loot
Its me, the Rook who stole six key templates on Perimeter a week ago. Those templates turned into two Maintenance Canal keys, one Bio-Research Pump key, one Data Wall Upper Level key, one North Relay Storage key, and one Algae Ponds Office key.
If you are not aware, Canal, Pump, and Data Wall are all purple keys. Storage and Office are blue keys.
Of those keys, I looted and exfiltrated successfully with all purple keys (Canal x2, Pump, Data Wall), lost North Relay Storage in-match, and sold the Algae Ponds Office key for space to fit a Cryo 06 because I figured the Office key simply isn't worth using and it was the easiest thing to sell at that time. As it turns out, the purple keys weren't worth it either!
Every single purple key contained roughly the same loot. That is
- 0 Gold Items
- 0-1 Purple Shields, Gun, Backpack, Salvage, Core
- 0-2 Purple Valuable
- 2-4 Blue Cores
- 3-6+ Blue Salvage
- 3-6+ Blue Valuables
- 12+ Grenades/Equipment/Consumables
Not one of the purple keys (Canal x2, Pump, Data Wall) contained any prestige item of any type. No shield, backpack, mod, core, anything. They contained a massive amount of blue salvage and valuables and maybe a tiny amount of something purple.
The problem is that I can load in to Outpost as Rook and get essentially the same loot in an hour that I got from one purple key, which requires far more than an hour to buy from the armory, involves risking your gear to open, and alerts the entire map to its activation, nearly ensuring PvP.
It is strange to me that a purple key would contain a minimum amount of purple items and nothing better. You'd expect purple items to be standard loot in a purple key room.
I do have a suspicion though, which is that self-revives and bubble shields are replacing other things during loot generation. Every single key had several of each. I had opened a few keys early in the wipe before those items became purple, and got significantly better loot back then.
Overall, unless something changes, my opinion is that opening purple key rooms simply is not worth the risk. Save the vault space for Cryo keys.