Supply Drops in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare are only way to get the best weapon mods and armor in the game, so naturally everyone wants to know how to get them.
There was a lot of speculation at first as to how they were earned, with a lot of rumors going around claiming that you got more if you died a lot, especially if you died first in a match.
This theory ended up being false however, but it was an easy mistake since Supply Drops are somewhat tied to deaths (sort of).
The way Supply Drops are primarily earned is simply through playing time. If you play around 45 minutes online, you earn one supply drop. This rate is increased by a factor of two if you currently have a “Rapid Supply” in effect.
The reason people thought that Supply Drops were tied to dying was because after the 45 minute time frame, the Supply Drop is awarded to you upon your next death or kill.
Supply Drops are earned in a couple other ways as well. For instance, you will earn some from playing through the Campaign and from playing Exo Survival.
Supply Drops are also tied to some specific challenges, but from what I can tell they are tied to some of the earlier challenges in online play in order to “boost” the amount you get initially. This fact has caused the argument against the 45 minute time frame, since when you first start playing the game you can get several in quick succession.
**Update**
An update was announced on 12/18/2014 that Daily Supply Drop Challenges are being added to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One version of the game.
This is a nice change, since I have always felt like Supply Drops don’t come frequently enough. There is no word yet whether this update will be coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles however.