Material decay of killed ships
- Thread starter SkyB
- Start date
Bummer, looks like even more things in game are made the way to punch you in a gut just because 
Try this..
During the fight, maybe when your 1st opponent is nearing death deploy your cargo scoop. When you have a break in the combat, maybe when you're doing a boost flip or trying to get your guns back on target switch fire groups and start firing limpets. Of course, if you do this without selecting something specific, they will just pick up anything in range but as long as you keep your cargo scoop open, they will return materials to you while you fight. Usually, your opponent will be too focused on you to attack the limpets so you should be able to pick stuff up as enemies explode.
If you do this though, just be careful to watch your cargo. Sometimes when you blow up pirate ships they jettison their cargo and the goods are illegal. The Limpets won't distinguish between cargo and mats and if you have illicit cargo in your hold you could get attacked by System Authority. Keep an eye on this and jettison any illegal cargo.
The range on the Limpets is kind of short (1.25M I think) so get close to where the ship exploded before you launch them. Hopefully, that helps a little... good luck! 07
During the fight, maybe when your 1st opponent is nearing death deploy your cargo scoop. When you have a break in the combat, maybe when you're doing a boost flip or trying to get your guns back on target switch fire groups and start firing limpets. Of course, if you do this without selecting something specific, they will just pick up anything in range but as long as you keep your cargo scoop open, they will return materials to you while you fight. Usually, your opponent will be too focused on you to attack the limpets so you should be able to pick stuff up as enemies explode.
If you do this though, just be careful to watch your cargo. Sometimes when you blow up pirate ships they jettison their cargo and the goods are illegal. The Limpets won't distinguish between cargo and mats and if you have illicit cargo in your hold you could get attacked by System Authority. Keep an eye on this and jettison any illegal cargo.
The range on the Limpets is kind of short (1.25M I think) so get close to where the ship exploded before you launch them. Hopefully, that helps a little... good luck! 07
Do this;
*NPCs Wingmen and other ships PD might take down your limpets.
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
- 1. Strip NPC's shields.
- 2. Use whatever means to destroy point defence turrets on NPC to prevent then blowing up limpets* (packhounds work well)
- 3. When NPC is near death, deploy cargo hatch and limpets
- 4. Use contacts to ignore all non-materials.
- 5. Scoop, and scan for text victim.
- 6. Go to 1.
*NPCs Wingmen and other ships PD might take down your limpets.
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Prioritize the dropped stuff, if you splat a wing get near the good stuff before launching limpets or scooping it yourself don't worry about the rest. If you set your throttle forward speed to just under 40 mps (max scoop speed) and override it by dabbing reverse thrusters you can grab a clump of mats faster than limpets.
Agreed they decay very fast, but consider if they didn't your scanner would be flooded very quickly. So it's either fast decay of fewer drops.
However I only find this is a problem if I've lost focus, splatted a few ships then remembered to check for materials amongst a swarm of grey blips.
One thing to do is to keep your priorities and check your contacts immediately after killing a good donor ship, i.e. don't get carried away.
However I only find this is a problem if I've lost focus, splatted a few ships then remembered to check for materials amongst a swarm of grey blips.
One thing to do is to keep your priorities and check your contacts immediately after killing a good donor ship, i.e. don't get carried away.
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i do it this way:
Kill 3 ships with my corvette in a few seconds,
then deploy the drones from my class7 and class5 limpet controller (thats 7 total),
open the cargo hatch and position myself near the loot.
sometimes i think it is wrong that the limpets can keep up with my ship when i close the cargohatch and boost towards a 3km away loot cloud,
but as soon as i am at 1.5km or so, they detach and slow down to their collection speed.
and on their return route, they need that 200m vertical final aproach path to to my hatch
if there was a keybind that would allow me to cycle through non-ship contacts, i would not even use them in free collection mode.
Kill 3 ships with my corvette in a few seconds,
then deploy the drones from my class7 and class5 limpet controller (thats 7 total),
open the cargo hatch and position myself near the loot.
sometimes i think it is wrong that the limpets can keep up with my ship when i close the cargohatch and boost towards a 3km away loot cloud,
but as soon as i am at 1.5km or so, they detach and slow down to their collection speed.
and on their return route, they need that 200m vertical final aproach path to to my hatch
if there was a keybind that would allow me to cycle through non-ship contacts, i would not even use them in free collection mode.
It makes distress calls disappointing. By the time the last wave is finished with, the mats from the first wave are disintegrating.
Deleted member 38366
D
I think when I was still grinding Mats in the Bubble, my makeshift Battle Conda had 9 active Collector Limpets at a time and an SLF prepping or finishing distant NPCs already while I was scooping.
Even with that, they couldn't keep up. Not in a HighRES and not in a CZ.
(and I quickly found out CZ Ships very frequently had PDs and occasionally ECM... At times, the supply of 96 Limpets was depleted at an alarming rate)
Even with that, they couldn't keep up. Not in a HighRES and not in a CZ.
(and I quickly found out CZ Ships very frequently had PDs and occasionally ECM... At times, the supply of 96 Limpets was depleted at an alarming rate)
I suppose in a ship like a corvette you could plonk a few tons of gold in your hold to attract pirates go to a compromised nav beacon and just sit there vaporizing all comers with your cargo hatch open, throttle at zero and your limpets going crazy in the concentrated mat cloud.
A combination of bounty and mat harvesting, sounds very boring to me though.
A combination of bounty and mat harvesting, sounds very boring to me though.
Thanks cmdrs, good ideas.
I happen to have this problem when soloing wing assassination missions or high threat combat USS with five enemies at once.
Very annoying.
I know there are too many materials flying around when in a haz raz if there was no decay at all but the timer is just too fast in order loot it all.
I happen to have this problem when soloing wing assassination missions or high threat combat USS with five enemies at once.
Very annoying.
I know there are too many materials flying around when in a haz raz if there was no decay at all but the timer is just too fast in order loot it all.
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Yeah, their lifetime like tripled would not hurt anything.
It can be - but you don't need the gold - just do it in a Haz res, and I like to train up crew that way - let them handle as much of the fight as possible and only add a quick burst of fire or a packhound or two if they are struggling - makes it more entertaining.
Unfortunately this decay happens for a very good reason. The game code has to log and keep track of ALL items, ships, USS's, and cargo etc etc. and with the potential for hundreds of items being logged, co-ords cross checked and then represented dynamically for all commanders in the instance, the game-flow could struggle.
So IF the cargo and other ephemeral items had a "permanent" or indeed proportionally longer expiration delay, the game would slow down appreciably for everyone in the instance. The FPS would obviously be the first to suffer, so this "length of decay" is "optimized" for best game performance. The "lore" behind the destruction or expiration of the cargo canisters is that; the harsh environment of space quickly attacks and overcomes the standard galactic cargo canister..... however that really does not explain how the cargo canisters found at wreck sites on planet surfaces manage to "survive" a pretty similar hostile environment.
o7
Troy_McClure
Banned
That's nothing...try scooping 'manually' in the middle of a CZ near a planetary body!
I) the enemy hordes are trying to kill you II) the gravity from the body makes scooping very hard (& make sure you get it first time or the additional rotational effects you impart through impacting it, will make it virtually impossible to retrieve!) III) CZ contacts list orders constantly change as existing/new ships enter & leave scanner range, making even selecting your chosen material difficult.
Good luck! :|[blah]
EDIT: Who says Frontier are sadists!?
I) the enemy hordes are trying to kill you II) the gravity from the body makes scooping very hard (& make sure you get it first time or the additional rotational effects you impart through impacting it, will make it virtually impossible to retrieve!) III) CZ contacts list orders constantly change as existing/new ships enter & leave scanner range, making even selecting your chosen material difficult.
Good luck! :|[blah]
EDIT: Who says Frontier are sadists!?
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