Salvage items stolen??

Wondering why items found at unidentified signal sources are listen as stolen when you collect them? I didn’t steal them, yet I pay a fine? At what point do these items found floating in space become legal salvage?
 
You only pay a fine if you are caught with them.

Sneak into a station with a black market (so do not get scanned as you approach) and sell them for profit.
 
Are you in open? Someone's jettisoned them, without relinquishing ownership.
o7

nah, open doesn't matter. i presume its because the transport is property of the faction that sent it on its mission and will send a salvage and rescue operation to retrieve it eventually. this never plays out in game but if you want to RP it you can roll with the cargo being jettisoned due to heavy damage taken meaning the pilot (who would have been killed) never willfully dropped the cargo.

on the other side, how are you getting fined? don't get scanned with illegal cargo. find outposts with black markets and cash in on that pure profit.
 
Surface salvage is legal because <reasons>
Space salvage generally isn't unless it's salvage for a specifically legal mission. There are illegal variants.

Why? Who knows...
 
For a lore head-canon reason why:

All cargo canisters contain the 34th century equivalent of an RFID chip, which gives the ID of its rightful owner. If a cop scans your ship and detects some cargo that bears an ID that is from a different owner than the person flying the ship, then the reasonable assumption the cop makes is that you stole it from the rightful owner by force of violence.

These chips are un-hackable and un-editable by anyone other than the rightful owner. The rightful owner can, however, choose to erase the data, making the salvage "Legal". When your ship scoops up a piece of cargo with a blank RFID, it re-writes the chip with the new data that you are the new legal owner of the cargo.
 
The only real life analogy that seems logical is that the cargo wasn't found in 'International Waters' (sic: Interstellar space, which obviously is not a thing in E-D sadly), it was found in a star system, which has a jurisdiction (national waters), and is therefore not 'free salvage' in the sense we use today.
 
I don't think you can just pick up whatever cargo even in "international waters". There is always paperwork to be done. Sometimes salvage missions direct you to pick up opposing factions salvage, sometimes it is wished the legal process was not involved. Salvage missions essentially are the submarine scene from the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only".
For_Your_Eyes_Only_-_UK_cinema_poster.jpg
 
Surface salvage is legal because <reasons>
Space salvage generally isn't unless it's salvage for a specifically legal mission. There are illegal variants.

Why? Who knows...

That actually depends. I've found illegal salvage on surfaces just as often as legal salvage.

In the end it doesn't make a difference to me - I haven no problems getting in or out of stations without being scanned.
 
Yeah, the customs enforcement would probably be more efficient if they installed the scanners in the docking bay.

You would think.... but I suspect it has something to do with the Pilot's Union and large credit transfer that they don't have these.
I refuse to accept general incompetence as an excuse.
 
Ignore all floating items that aren't materials.

There's no money in it. Scooping non stop free floating platinum is a losing proposition, since you can make 100x more in the same time just mining VOs or LTDs.
 
Ignore all floating items that aren't materials.

There's no money in it. Scooping non stop free floating platinum is a losing proposition, since you can make 100x more in the same time just mining VOs or LTDs.

There really should be an option "ignore all cargo" so you don't have to ignore every commodity seperately. Just ignore all and if you ever find something you want, just unignore it. Because it's tedious and when you unwillingly find yourself with illegal cargo in the RES and get scanned by patrol, it gets hot.
 
Just ignore all and if you ever find something you want, just unignore it.
While I get that sentiment, it's a bit contradictory... as it suggests everything is ignored, but you're still going to inspect the list anyway, which defeats the purpose of ignoring everything in the first place.

Smarter filters, however, would be the way to go. Filter below X galactic average value, and also include filters for illegal/stolen/mission cargoes.... basically filters which will actually just leave the interesting things.
 
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While I get that sentiment, it's a bit contradictory... as it suggests everything is ignored, but you're still going to inspect the list anyway, which defeats the purpose of ignoring everything in the first place.

Smarter filters, however, would be the way to go. Filter below X galactic average value, and also include filters for illegal/stolen/mission cargoes.

The thing is, if I have limpets out and a cargo is dropped, they go fetch it without asking. I need to notice the cargo (I usually fail at this first task), rush to the contact panel, scroll through the list, select that cargo and put it on the ignore list. If I ever manage to do that last step before the limpet tosses it into my cargo hold. Iignoring specific types as you say would be great also. But ignore everything would be my choice, as I don't want any cargo whatsoever, no illegal stuff to not get shot by authorities, no legal stuff to not get shot by pirates before I shot them first.
 
Just cut out the ambiguity. Drag the cargo from the ship via hatchbreakers. That way it's definitely illegal and you know where you stand.
 
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