It's also incredibly slow. It also needs a way to send back the data, unless you expect it to slowly return to somewhere "civilized". So there is either tech on board or they have tech capable enough to pretty much just observe us directly.

Maybe as some first contact protocol, by dropping the rock outside a candidates solar system. But again, i'd expect them to have so much better ways to observe.

We humans really have a tendency to see pattern in things. Even after having having seen the decompiled game code being basic RNG, a part of me was still looking for ways to improve my drop chance by me doing things slightly different :D