salvaging

[Furiously]

Any opinions on salvaging in missions? I really don't want to give up a high slot on an assault frig to a salvager. I suppose I could just get a BC or BS....

[Simond]

Train Destroyers.

Fit a destroyer (gallente has largest cargo hold, iirc) with a 3:2 ratio of salvagers/tractors in the highs, a AB & cap rechargers in mids, and cargo expanders in lows.

Bookmark a wreck in each mission stage when you're running it.

Fly back afterwards and grab the loot/salvage the wrecks.

Run far, far away from anything even remotely resembling combat.


Edit: Also consider training Gallente Cruiser & salvaging both up to 4, then fitting an Exqueror with 2:2 salvagers/tractors. It's got a huge cargo hold for a cruiser (which increases with Gallente cruiser skill), and doesn't cost that much more than a destroyer.

Plus it looks like a 50's-style rocketship with the new graphics. 

[IainC]

If you want to maximise cash in missions then salvaging is by far the best way to do that. If you're just blitzing missions for LPs and don't care about the cash then don't bother.

I salvage each mission and on level 4s that can be worth several million isk. I use a separate salvage ship to come back and hoover up all the wrecks when I'm done, it's a Catalyst (Gallente destroyer) with 4 salvagers and 4 tractor beams on the high slots, a cap recharger and an afterburner in the mids and 3 cargo expanders in the low slots. That gives me just over 800m3 of loot holding space and allows me to suck in wrecks while simultaneously flying to further ones and looting/salvaging the ones close enough. Destroyers are pretty cheap (less than a million) and are ideal salvagers due to their huge number of high slots.

[lac]

If you are just starting and you don't have the skills necessary to fit a tractor beam you can fit a micro warp drive to get to the wrecks a bit faster. Bookmark the mission  location(s), turn in the mission in and warp back to the bookmark in your salvage ship. Everything will be have despawned aside from the wrecks and cans you left. Since you are no longer in deadspace, you can use the mwd to go weeeeeeee a lot faster.

If you are hauling or have a spare high slot while traveling, fit a salvager. If you run into a t2 wreck you can make some nice isk.

[Trigona]

Salvaging is money for jam, it's a must imo if you're doing missions.  Skill up to Salvage 4, get a Catalyst with 3 salvage rigs and go for it.  You'll pay for your investment of 50-55M isk in 2-4 wks if you play a fair bit.

[IainC]

Salvaging is money for jam, it's a must imo if you're doing missions.  Skill up to Salvage 4, get a Catalyst with 3 salvage rigs and go for it.  You'll pay for your investment of 50-55M isk in 2-4 wks if you play a fair bit.

That 50m or so is for a rigged salvage boat. You can save about 49m by not rigging your ship. The rigs will save you time but cost a fortune, I could afford to rig my ship but I don't because I don't think the time saved per cycle is worth the cost. YMMV.

[Thrawn]

Train Destroyers.

Fit a destroyer (gallente has largest cargo hold, iirc) with a 3:2 ratio of salvagers/tractors in the highs, a AB & cap rechargers in mids, and cargo expanders in lows.

Bookmark a wreck in each mission stage when you're running it.

Fly back afterwards and grab the loot/salvage the wrecks.

Per some of the veterans advice this is what I've been doing as well and it's very worth it.  On my luckiest salvage run ever I pulled in over 5 million isk in salvage off of a simple level 2 mission.  Granted, that was VERY lucky and I never came close to duplicating it, but very worth the 15 minutes or whatever to fly back and grab your salvaging ship and come back out to clear the mission area.

[bhodi]

Salvaging is so important. I get 300kish off of lvl 3 missions, sometimes more. Ignore Trigona unless you are swimming in money. Train destroyers to 1. Get survey and mechanic to 3, then salvaging to 2 or 3.

Salvaging book is 1mil. Destroyer is 100k. Get yourself whatever destroyer you trained frigates in for 1 mil, 4 mil for the tractors, .5 mil for the rest of the gear/books. Congratulations, you have a salvaging setup for under 6.5 million.

My salvaging setup is a cormorant (caldari destroyer) with 4 tractor, 4 salvager, 1 AB, 2 small ld-acid cap batteries, 1 expanded cargo hold II. 256/258 cpu, 62/66 pg. Yeah, it's not the *best* destroyer for salvaging, with only 574m3 cargo, but it's what I could fit and afford. The biggest cost are tractor beams at a million a piece, and the expanded cargo hold 2 which you can downgrade to a 1.

On the plus side, it's quicker than the other destroyers, with more cap, so my salvaging tactics are a bit different. I don't end the mission and MWD around; I warp in, tractor everything within 20km, then I simply cruise through at 400m/s with the afterburner going, approaching until I hit 20, tractoring, approaching the next. When they are in range I savlage/loot as needed. Put no more than 2 salvagers on a wreck, it's a waste of cap to put more. It still takes 10-15m to swap to the salvager, hoover up everything in the mission, and get back to base.

I trained targeting IV so I can lock 5 targets at a time -- it really helps, but I still wish there was a 'lock target' hotkey. The most annoying thing is the huge full screen freeze when you hit 'open cargo' -- It is the most annoying thing, ever.

I have run out of space on particularly long missions (the X extravaganza 5 room missions, for example), but generally it's because of the completely worthless and gigantic "Armor Scraps" which are immediately jettisoned. Occasionally, I'll have to make another trip back, but it's pretty rare. More often in L4s recently, though. That loot is big.

[IainC]

I trained targeting IV so I can lock 5 targets at a time -- it really helps, but I still wish there was a 'lock target' hotkey.

Ctrl+left click to lock target.

[Endie]

Ctrl+left click to lock target.

And spam ctrl+left click fast enough so that you will both lock and approach the target in one: very useful in decloaking ships: ctrl and spam left click then when you start approaching immediately set your speed to full, manually.  That way you don't stop again when they cloak.

[bhodi]

I did not know that. Thanks!

[JoeTF]

Screw rigs, they only lower salvaging time, not increase the loot. Better to have pack two more salvagers than rigs.
My setup is amarr dessy with 10MN AB. goes up to over 1k speed, can use it in deadspace.

Though, I don't really salvage missions - only plexes and ruskies (looting t2 wrecks is only situation where using rigs has a point).

[Morat20]

My L2 misison ship is a Vex. Armor tank/drone boat. So I have a full set of high-slots unused for anything. Threw a single light nos up there, but otherwise pack two salvagers and a tractor beam.

Since I basically armor tank and let the mission rats swarm me, all my kills tend to be clustered in a 10 to 20km radius around me (some of the first kills are generally close to maximum range for the rat lockon -- I tend to basically choose the first wreck I make and orbit it at 500m for the rest of the fight). I tractor them in and loot. Works REALLY well.

I've collected tens of millions of ISK in salvage, enough that I can pretty much create any rig I have the blueprint for. It massively increases your mission payouts, just by training Salvaging to 3 or 4. Well worth it, even if you need to swap to another ship to go clean up your wrecks later.

[Trouble]

When you get back to the station make sure to sell the salvage directly to buy orders, don't even pay attention to prices. This is important so that I may continue fleecing mission runners for every penny I can.

[Morat20]

When you get back to the station make sure to sell the salvage directly to buy orders, don't even pay attention to prices. This is important so that I may continue fleecing mission runners for every penny I can.

It's AMAZING how much more money I started making when I realized that. (And then I took some trade skills and started fleecing mission runners myself!. Not on salvage though -- too much competition).

[Furiously]

Ok - fitted out a destroyer, that works pretty well. Wouldn't have thought of using a cheap ship with a ton of highs.

[Trigona]

I know rigs are expensive, however my understanding is that salvage rigs increase your chance of a successful salvage:


This ship modification is designed to increase a ship's chance of salvage retrieval at the expense of max velocity.

This comes from this site: http://eveinfo.com/rigs/956/eve-online-armor-rigs.html

[Reg]

They do increase your chance - but so does using more than one beam on the same wreck. The salvage rigs are so expensive that IMO, they just aren't worth it unless you're already rich or you don't have time to just use 2 or 3 salvage beams on the wreck.

It'd be different if they made you get more salvage or better salvage but all they do is let you get the same old stuff a little faster.

[Morat20]

They do increase your chance - but so does using more than one beam on the same wreck. The salvage rigs are so expensive that IMO, they just aren't worth it unless you're already rich or you don't have time to just use 2 or 3 salvage beams on the wreck.

It'd be different if they made you get more salvage or better salvage but all they do is let you get the same old stuff a little faster.

Huh, I tend to run my beams in parallel -- one on each wreck I have in range. Can't keep up with the tractor most times.

[bhodi]

If your cap is running dry, fit more small capacitor batteries.

[IainC]

I know rigs are expensive, however my understanding is that salvage rigs increase your chance of a successful salvage:


This ship modification is designed to increase a ship's chance of salvage retrieval at the expense of max velocity.

This comes from this site: http://eveinfo.com/rigs/956/eve-online-armor-rigs.html

That description (like many in EvE) is a little ambiguous. It doesn't mean that you have a higher chance of gettign salvage from a wreck, it just means your chance of success with any given pulse from your salvager is better - but success doesn't always mean loot.

Basically salvagers run in pulses of 10 seconds with a base chance of success which is modified by your Salvage skill and any salvage rigs you've fitted. At the end of that pulse the server rolls the RNG to see if your salvager worked. If it doesn't then the next cycle begins and you keep going until you're successful or you give up. If it is successful then it checks to see what success means and either gives you loot or the 'unfortunately there was nothing to salvage' message.

The Survey skill reduces the cycle time as well for a cheaper way to save time.

[lac]

The Survey skill reduces the cycle time as well for a cheaper way to save time.

aha, so the survey V I had to train for some exploration related stuff is actually usefull after all. Good to know.

[ajax34i]

Cheapest way to reduce the time is to aim multiple salvager modules at one wreck (this is why destroyers are nice salvaging platforms). 

[Morat20]

The Survey skill reduces the cycle time as well for a cheaper way to save time.

I did not know that, and I could really use a time reduction. I think I'll go acquire a survey skillbook.

[bhodi]

I did not know that, and I could really use a time reduction. I think I'll go acquire a survey skillbook.

Salvaging requires survey III so you should have it already...

[Morat20]

I did not know that, and I could really use a time reduction. I think I'll go acquire a survey skillbook.

Salvaging requires survey III so you should have it already...

Yeah, I  noticed that today. :)