Salvaging (Guide)

Salvaging

In order to manufacture rigs, you need to have certain materials which can only be obtained through salvaging. You can also acquire salvage materials by purchase on the market, from other players or from some 0.0 Complexes. This guide will try to cover the basics of how salvaging works, aiding all players, old and new, who are starting out in the salvaging profession. For a description of what salvage materials can be gained from different types of wrecks, consult the Rigs Guide.

Wrecks

In order to start salvaging you need to find wrecks, which can be found almost anywhere. You may be on a mission for your agent, going belt to belt, going against your enemy in war-times: any time a ship has been destroyed, a Wreck will be left behind.

Wrecks come in different sizes, depending on the type of ship, and have different amounts of materials in them. The rule of thumb is that the bigger the ship, the more materials you will be able to salvage.

Skill Requirements

You want to get into the action, but before you can do that, you need the skills. Let us first check what skills you have and what you need.

You need to use a module called Salvager I; the basic skill requirement is to have Salvaging at Level 1. In order to train that skill, you need the following skills:

• Mechanic III
• Survey III
• Electronics I

If you meet the requirements, you can train the skill and use the Salvager I module. The skill will increase the chance of successfully salvaging from a wreck by 5% per level. Contrary to popular belief, Survey will not decrease the cycle time of the Salvager I.

In order to salvage Tech 2 or faction ships, Salvaging must be trained to Level 3.

To salvage Sleeper Battleships you need Salvaging at level 4.

Fitting the Module

The fitting requirements are not that high, so you should be able to fit the module on any ship you possess. It needs a high slot, 20 CPU and 1 MW, and consumes 20 capacitor points for every 10 second cycle.

Usage

Once you have obtained the module and fitted it on your ship, you can start locating a wreck. The easiest way is to head into an asteroid belt and shoot an NPC. It will leave a Wreck behind, indicated in the overview as a triangle pointing down with a line on the top. You will either see a filled triangle or an empty one. If the triangle is filled, this means there is loot to be found in the Wreck. You must target the wreck and be within 5000 meters before the module will scan the wreck for useful salvage. The Wreck need not be empty. If you salvage a wreck that contains loot the loot will not be destroyed, rather the loot will reappear in space inside a disposable container for you to pick-up when you get within 2500m.

The module is activated like all other modules with the appropriate function key or by clicking on it. You are then given a message after each cycle, stating whether you were successful or not, or if nothing was salvageable. If you fail in a salvage attempt, you may continue until you are successful; thus you do not have just one try at each wreck.

The amount of salvage and which components you receive are calculated based on percentages pre-defined into the Wreck. The materials you get will vary from race to race and are consistent with their specialty. Thus, a Guristas ship will drop shield and missile materials, while Sansha will drop laser and armor components. All factions and races will drop circuits. Once a salvage attempt is successful, the material will automatically be transferred to your cargo hold if you have sufficient hold space. You can then proceed to another wreck.

There is no limit to how many Salvager I modules you can fit to your ship, other than the amount of high slots on your ship and the CPU and power output of your ship.

Player ships

Player ships drop salvage materials as well. They drop the appropriate materials of the race of the ship; for example, Amarr ships will drop Amarr materials. Please note, Sansha and Blood Raider ships are quite similar to those of the Amarr, thus they will yield similar materials.

Tech 2 player ships also drop tech 2 components needed for tech 2 rigs. Tech 2 materials are extremely rare, but the rigs are considerably more efficient than their tech 1 counterparts. Officers, Commanders and some Rogue Drone NPCs also drop tech 2 salvage materials.

Rigs

Rigs are like implants, just for your ship. You can tune your ship to better handle certain features, such as dealing with more damage, strengthening resistances, shortening cycle times, scan ranges, etc. The salvageable materials are used in the manufacture of the Rigs.

Rigs work under the same principle as other modules and implants. They need slots to work, calibration points and, of course, the skills. The basic skill is Jury Rigging, which you will need to manufacture the Rigs or install them on your ship. There are also numerous sub skills which are needed for specific Rigs such as shield rigging, armor rigging, etc. There are numerous types of Rigs, each aimed at different aspects of running your ship, such as shield, armor, electronic warfare, etc.

Other Tips

Since the salvager module can be fitted on any ship that meets the fitting requirements, almost all ships can be used for Salvaging. Small Tractor Beam I modules can be fitted to high-slots to pull the wrecks into range from up to 20,000m away, so fitting a tractor beam (or several) can also help your cause in salvaging more quickly. Although you can use multiple salvagers on a single wreck you can only use one tractor on each wreck.

The more Salvager I and Small Tractor Beam I modules you use the faster Salvaging goes.

Fitting a Salvage Tackle to your ship will increase the chance of a salvage retrieval by 10%.

Plugging in a 'Prospector' PPY-1 implant will increase the chance of salvage retrieval by 5%.

CONCORD allows the salvaging of other players wrecks. Salvaging does not trigger an aggression countdown.

You don't need to create the wrecks yourself to salvage them. You can salvage behind other players after, or even while they're fighting.

Large wreck fields can be found inside missons and deadspace complexes. Others' missions/complexes can be found by using an Expanded Probe Launcher and Core Recon Probes. Also, player battles in lowsec space can leave behind a lot of player wrecks, which can be salvaged. Many might give you valuable tech 2 salvage.

Wrecks can also be found in asteroid belts, at gates, or anywhere where a recent battle between players has occurred. You can use the starmap to find where player ships have been destroyed recently. Faction Warfare areas are a good place to look

If you are looting as well as salvaging, a ship with a large cargo bay is preferred (You can fit expanded cargohold IIs to help with this). Beware, if the wreck you are looting is not your own, the player who created the wrecks will be able to attack you.

If you or your (player) corporation created the wrecks (they will show white in the overview), you can fit Small Tractor Beam Is on your ships to pull wrecks to you.

People looting and salvaging their own wrecks should have a ship with a large cargohold and many high slots for Small Tractor Beam Is and salvager.

People looting and salvaging others' wrecks should look for a ship with a good cargohold, but also high speed and agility to make up for the inability to use Small Tractor Beam Is

Those who simply salvage others' wrecks don't need to worry about cargo space, as salvage is incredibly small. For these players, a fast, agile ship is preferred, although the more hislots for Salvager Is, the better

A good ship to use for salvaging is a Destroyer class ship. Destroyers have many high slots meaning you can fit several salvage modules and tractor beams. You can also fit a combination of turrets, salvagers and tractor beams to "create, pull & salvage" wrecks.

For quick cash early in the salvaging career, it's best to fit a ship so you can take on rogue drones. When their wrecks are salvaged, you may get a highly valuable Alloyed Tritanium Bar which is worth around 250,000 ISK per unit.