Apex Legends Attachments and Crafting Guide (2026): Hop-Ups, Loot

Season 30 "Marked" rebuilt how loot works in Apex Legends, and Season 31 "Cipher" keeps that system. Respawn's designers wrote that "loot creep has become a real issue": too much purple and gold early, and nothing left to find later. The answer was the Revamped Power Journey — fewer high-tier attachments, almost no gold, Corrupted Attachments with real trade-offs, Locked Hop-Ups that you earn on the gun, and Upgrade Panels and Arsenals that turn on as the match goes on. This guide explains every piece, what Replicators can still print, and a looting order that gets you a working gun fast.

Attachment slots and tiers

Every weapon has up to four attachment slots plus a hop-up. What each slot does:

Since the Season 30 UI overhaul, picking up an attachment shows exactly what it changes on the gun in your hands, before you take it.

Corrupted Attachments

Corrupted Attachments arrived in Season 30 to give players "a new vector for choice and strategy", in the designers' words, because attachments had become a straight upgrade path. Each gives a bonus a normal attachment can't, with a drawback, and only one can be equipped per weapon:

They spawn in the core loot pool at a low chance, in the Round 2 and Round 3 Care Packages, in high-tier places such as World's Edge Vaults, and two come in every Season 31 Stronghold. Our take: the Overflowing Magazine is the easiest to use well, because a bigger magazine than purple wins long fights; the Tactical Laser belongs on close-range SMGs only, because it hurts recoil while aiming; and the Agile Standard Stock is for aggressive players who fight while moving (since the mid-season patch it no longer stacks with Mad Maggie's or Gibraltar's speed effects).

Locked Hop-Ups

Since Showdown (Season 26) hop-ups are no longer floor loot. Each weapon that has one comes with it pre-equipped and inactive, and it can't be removed or moved to another gun. You fill it with Locked Hop-Up points:

1. ADeal damage with that gun

   Damage to enemy players with the weapon earns points; other damage gives partial credit.

2. BUpgrade at its Arsenal

   An Arsenal of the right type can upgrade the weapon, which adds points.

3. CPick up Hop-Up Boosters

   Each one is worth 100 points.

White, blue and purple kitted weapons don't come with the hop-up unlocked; gold kitted and Care Package weapons do. The costs move with balance patches. These are the ones EA's 2026 patch notes name, with the patch that last set them:

Season 31 removed three hop-ups: Double Tap from the EVA-8, Selectfire from the Prowler and Redline from the L-STAR. Because these values change often, trust the loot card over any table, including ours: it shows the current progress, such as "0/375 pts" on an EVA-8.

The Power Journey: why loot feels worse (on purpose)

Marked's designer's notes describe the old curve as "large early game spikes of high tier loot into a pretty substantial flatline". The fix kept loot quantity the same and lowered its quality. Respawn later published the effect: average loot quality three minutes into a match fell between Season 29 and Season 30 on every map in rotation.

What changed to get there, from the Marked patch notes: purple attachment spawns were reduced everywhere; gold attachments and gold backpacks were removed; loot rollers and wildlife lost their gold and attachment drops; loot ticks drop more consumables; MRVNs went from 24 to 12; the Hot Zone and the legend perk bins (Extended Supply and Weapon Supply) were removed. EA Help still describes Assault legends opening a secret compartment in Supply Bins that holds attachments, so check in game which bins you see. The high-tier rolls now come from Vaults, Icarus's bridge, Care Packages and, since Season 31, Strongholds.

Upgrade Panels, Arsenals and Bin Reset

Put together, the Power Journey means your gun gets better in steps you can plan: a white or blue build from the floor, a jump when the Arsenals and panels come online, and the high tiers from Care Packages and the Stronghold. In our experience, players who try to "finish" their loadout before the first ring lose more than they gain.

Replicators: what you can still craft

Crafting used to cost materials and rotated weekly. Since Breakout (Season 20) Replicators are free: crafting materials and rotations were removed and the menu was cut to four items. Each print "will exhaust that replicator specifically for you", so every squad member can use each Replicator once.

Matches start with 12 Replicators, and more arrive by airdrop: Breakout added one at the start of Round 4, and the community wiki (last edited 27 December 2025) lists two later drops. In Season 31 Replicators were removed from the Wildcard mode but "still appear as a general airdrop type alongside Strongholds". A printed item is reserved for the player who printed it for about five seconds, per the wiki.

Ammo: stacks, stockpiles and Arsenals

• Light ammo stacks to 60 since Season 29 (it was 72). Assault legends carry more ammo per stack and extra grenade slots, per EA Help.
• Energy ammo is gone. Since Season 30 energy weapons regenerate a stockpile, one magazine every 18 seconds when you aren't firing or reloading.
• The Wingman is Heavy ammo now. Season 31 moved it from Sniper ammo, so it shares Heavy Arsenals and magazines.
• Arsenal ammo bricks give full stacks of the matching type (since Season 27), and a Replicator prints one stack per weapon.

A looting order that works

BoostPirate's coaching order for the first minutes, built on the Power Journey rules above:

Attachment mistakes we see every day

For which guns to put all this on, see the best weapons guide; for barrel and stock values in a fight, the recoil guide; and for armor and heals, armor and EVO.