An item pile is supposed to show the floorob of the heaviest item in the pile, for example: an alien corpse (rather than any of the pieces of equipment that the alien was carrying).
Currently, the sorting seems to be using a semi-alphabetical system. As I picked up items off the pile, it would show the floorob of an item slightly higher in the alphabet, however the item pile was only maybe half gone by the time it wrapped back around to near the beginning of the alphabet again, only going forward it seemed to select item floorobs at random all the way to the end of the item pile.
It also seems to be inconsistent, as alien corpses are correctly showing on the ground where the alien died. Alien corpses always seem to go to the top of the pile, while alien artifacts list high on the pile but not necessarily above the equipment which had been brought to the mission.
I can't figure out a pattern to it.
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Edit: I realized after some more playing around with it that any pile I make after the mission starts will correctly put all items in order from heaviest to lightest. It is only the starting pile which does not follow this order. On reflection, I think it is quite possible that the initial pile sorting is done by the order in which things were assigned to the craft.
Edit 2: Ah, I see.