Famed drops in camps: what sets the chance
Whether a camp holds a famed (named) item is fixed the moment the camp is created, at world start, or later when a faction builds a new one. After that, fighting it, the day, the difficulty setting, and re-rolling by hovering do not change it. Only two things set the chance: the camp type, and how far the camp is from the nearest town.
The formula
Famed chance = camp chance + distance chance
- camp chance: a fixed percentage set by the camp type (table below)
- distance chance: +0.8% for every tile between the camp and the nearest settlement of any faction
A negative camp chance means the camp needs enough distance to climb above 0 before any famed can appear. For example, nomad tents at -23% need about 29 tiles from a town before the chance clears zero; every tile past that adds 0.8%.
Camp chance per camp
| Icon | Banner | Faction | Type | Camp chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
Bandit | Hideout | -23% |
 |
|
Bandit | Ruins | -7% |
 |
|
Bandit | Camp | -1% |
 |
 |
Barbarian | Shelter | -22% |
 |
|
Barbarian | Camp | -1% |
 |
|
Barbarian | Sanctuary | +28% |
|
 |
Goblin | Hideout | -23% |
 |
|
Goblin | Camp | -13% |
|
|
Goblin | Ruins | -7% |
 |
|
Goblin | Outpost | +3% |
 |
|
Goblin | City | +33% |
 |
 |
Nomad | Tents | -23% |
 |
|
Nomad | Ruins | -7% |
 |
|
Nomad | Hidden Camp | -1% |
 |
|
Nomad | Tent City | +23% |
|
 |
Orc | Hideout | -23% |
 |
|
Orc | Cave | -17% |
 |
|
Orc | Camp | -9% |
|
|
Orc | Ruins | -7% |
 |
|
Orc | Sea of Tents | +33% |
 |
 |
Ancient Undead | Crypt | -1% |
|
|
Ancient Undead | Ruins | -1% |
 |
|
Ancient Undead | Mass Grave | +3% |
 |
|
Ancient Undead | Vampire Coven | +13% |
 |
|
Ancient Undead | Buried Castle | +33% |
|
 |
Zombie | Hideout | -21% |
 |
|
Zombie | Graveyard | -11% |
 |
|
Zombie | Necromancer's Lair | -7% |
|
|
Zombie | Crypt | -1% |
|
|
Zombie | Ruins | -1% |
Examples: a nomad tent city (+23%) 20 tiles from a town has 23 + 0.8 x 20 = 39%. An orc hideout (-23%) 40 tiles out has -23 + 32 = 9%.
How many items
A camp holds at most two famed, never a third. The first uses the Famed chance above. A second is much rarer:
second chance = first chance x first chance / 2
using the chance as a decimal. A 25.4% camp: 0.254 x 0.254 / 2 = 3.2%. A 50.8% camp: 0.508 x 0.508 / 2 = 12.9%.
The first chance can pass 100%, since distance adds 0.8% per tile with no cap. At 100% or more the first famed is guaranteed, and the second rises higher too.
Armor, Helmet, Shield or Weapon Drop
Each famed is a weapon, shield, helmet, or armor, about 25% each. Which exact item it is comes out random from the named items of that type.
More precisely: the type is one roll of 20 to 100, split weapon 20 to 40, shield 41 to 60, helmet 61 to 80, armor 81 to 100, so weapons come a hair more often (about 26% against 25%). And a camp's own faction named items count double in their slot, so a bandit camp leans toward bandit-named gear over off-faction gear.
Common misconceptions
Does a stronger camp have a higher famed chance? No, not directly. The famed formula never reads the garrison, only the camp type and the distance. Two camps of the same type at the same distance have the same famed chance even if one rolled far more defenders than the other.
Do camps far from civilization have stronger defenders? No, not directly. A camp's defender size comes from the camp type, the day, and the difficulty setting, with no distance term at all. Two camps of the same type have the same average garrison wherever they sit on the map; only the random roll differs.
Both misconceptions come from the same coincidence: a camp's type drives both its famed chance and its garrison strength, and the game tends to place the higher-tier camp types farther from settlements. So remote, high-tier camps really are both tougher and richer in famed, but it is the camp type causing both, not distance making the fight harder or a hard fight making better famed.
Caveat: why thinking in "resources" is backwards
The formula usually quoted for this is:
famed chance = (Resources + 4 * distance) / 5 - 37
Both numbers in the sections above come from that one internal value, Resources. It is the same maths as camp chance + distance chance (camp chance = Resources / 5 - 37), just written around a number you cannot see. There are two reasons never to reach for it when talking about famed drops:
- You can never see it. Resources is a number baked into the game files, not shown anywhere in-game. So "famed chance depends on Resources" hands you a variable you cannot read and cannot act on. The only inputs you can actually see and choose are the camp type and how far it is from a town.
- It fuses two things that have nothing to do with each other. The same Resources number feeds two separate outputs: the garrison budget (how strong the enemies are) and the famed formula. So the moment you say "famed chance scales with Resources," it sounds like famed chance scales with how hard the fight is. It does not. The garrison you fight scales up with the day, the difficulty setting, and contracts, while the famed chance was locked at world generation from camp type and distance only. A tent city on day 250 is far harder to fight than on day 1, and has the exact same famed chance.
Camp type and distance. Not enemy strength.
Sources
Battle Brothers 1.5.1.8 game scripts.
scripts/entity/world/location.nut:449, 459, 463-525, 471scripts/entity/world/locations/*_location.nut (camp chance per camp type)