Hello!
I had this idea some time ago. But I lost it. And it was probably locked anyway.
So here is my version 2…
This is about the ability to salvage modules, useful scrapyards, and crafting said modules.
Module Salvage
Modules, or more specifically, parts of modules, can now be salvaged, as a cargo item, in convenient small chunks that fit in the cargo hatch.
Destroying a ship, will drop module parts, as well as materials, you may also find them floating in USSs, or on wreck sites at surfaces. These can be scooped up in to your cargo hold.
These can be traded with other CMDRs, or even pirated.
Module Salvage items carry the same legal status as the ship they came from. If a ship was legal to destroy, you can legally take the salvage. If it was destroyed illegally, the salvage is illicit.
Wreck Mining
You can also extract components from some wrecks(not freshly destroyed wreckage, only those found in USSs, or surfaces) using a mining laser.
Module Salvage Components
There are many types of Salvage Components, broken down in to basic categories, and universal items.
Categories;
Universal Components, can consist of items that may already exist in game, such as the old Engineer commodities, like Micro Weave Cooling Hoses, Modular Terminals, etc. These could all also be salvaged, found, brought, or earned via missions.
Identifying Components
When picking up components, they are simply listed as their parent group, so all weapon components are simply shown as "Unidentified Weapon Components" in your cargo hold, and will stack nicely.
In order to see what you actually have, you need to take them to either an engineer, or a local scrapyard. They will identify the items for you, for a small fee.
Modified Components
Some components may come with modifications built in! These will be listed at "Unusual Weapon Components" or something. To identify the nature of the modification, you must take these to any local Engineer. These will only be dropped from high ranking NPC's.
Scrapyards
Scrapyards can be found inside large persistent debris fields. These are usually Megaships present, and the owner has claimed the debris field for themselves. Salvage within is illicit, and you will gain an immediate bounty for collecting any of it. But it doesn't mean you can't try.
The local scrapyard owning faction should use the raider kits for available ships, just to complete the look.
Now you have a load of random crap, you can start doing stuff with it.
The first option, is obviously sell it. You can simply sell all of your salvage to a scrapyard.
'Unidentified salvage' isn't worth very much. 'Identified salvage' is worth a bit more, 'Unusual salvage' is worth quite a bit, 'Identified Unusual Salvage' is worth the most, but you would need to take that to an engineer to be identified first.
Module Assembly
Scrapyards and Engineer bases now all have workshops. You can store a huge amount of Salvage Components in workshops. Only Engineers can assemble modules using Modified Components. You can only use 1 workshop at a time. There is no 'magic chest' to access from anywhere.
PowerPlay modules can not be assembled or disassembled.
From here, you have a list of all available modules, similar to the Engineers screen, which can be filtered, and will auto sort by modules you can currently build using available salvage, at the top.
In order to build any modules, you will need all components in the list, plus some basic materials and data.
Obviously some modules can be incredibly expensive, so their recipe will require a lot of components, which will take time to gather.
Once all the components are in place, you press 'assemble' and it's done and added to your stored modules. (Assembly not available if module storage is full).
You can then equip, or sell these modules.
Modified Module Assembly
Using 'Identified Unusual Components', you can ask your Engineer to assemble a pre-modified module. Each component will have a quite small stat change, 1 positive, and 1 negative effect. You can stack these, but identical improvements have diminishing returns (to prevent you making a mega modifed 100t module).
Module Disassembly
Any module can also be broken down in to components, materials and data. But you won't get 100% of the recipe to remake it, you'll always lose some in the process.
Modified modules can only be disassembled at Engineer bases, and you can regain some of the materials put in to the modification.
Storage and Workshops
You can buy a one off payment workshop, which comes with storage for your cargo components, and additional data and material storage.
Larger workshops cost more, but hold more of each type.
Summary
Having a fully fledged Salvage career would be an excellent addition to ED.
It can be used as a whole new type of gameplay. Players can come together and trade parts to make modules, or pirate each other to steal them.
You could also save a significant amount of money by putting in more effort in to building a module, than you would simply saving the money. This in turn would also lower your rebuy.
Thoughts?
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
I had this idea some time ago. But I lost it. And it was probably locked anyway.
So here is my version 2…
This is about the ability to salvage modules, useful scrapyards, and crafting said modules.
Module Salvage
Modules, or more specifically, parts of modules, can now be salvaged, as a cargo item, in convenient small chunks that fit in the cargo hatch.
Destroying a ship, will drop module parts, as well as materials, you may also find them floating in USSs, or on wreck sites at surfaces. These can be scooped up in to your cargo hold.
These can be traded with other CMDRs, or even pirated.
Module Salvage items carry the same legal status as the ship they came from. If a ship was legal to destroy, you can legally take the salvage. If it was destroyed illegally, the salvage is illicit.
Wreck Mining
You can also extract components from some wrecks(not freshly destroyed wreckage, only those found in USSs, or surfaces) using a mining laser.
Module Salvage Components
There are many types of Salvage Components, broken down in to basic categories, and universal items.
Categories;
- Weapon Components
- Shield Components
- Thruster Components
- FSD Components
- ... And so on
Universal Components, can consist of items that may already exist in game, such as the old Engineer commodities, like Micro Weave Cooling Hoses, Modular Terminals, etc. These could all also be salvaged, found, brought, or earned via missions.
Identifying Components
When picking up components, they are simply listed as their parent group, so all weapon components are simply shown as "Unidentified Weapon Components" in your cargo hold, and will stack nicely.
In order to see what you actually have, you need to take them to either an engineer, or a local scrapyard. They will identify the items for you, for a small fee.
Modified Components
Some components may come with modifications built in! These will be listed at "Unusual Weapon Components" or something. To identify the nature of the modification, you must take these to any local Engineer. These will only be dropped from high ranking NPC's.
Scrapyards
Scrapyards can be found inside large persistent debris fields. These are usually Megaships present, and the owner has claimed the debris field for themselves. Salvage within is illicit, and you will gain an immediate bounty for collecting any of it. But it doesn't mean you can't try.
The local scrapyard owning faction should use the raider kits for available ships, just to complete the look.
Now you have a load of random crap, you can start doing stuff with it.
The first option, is obviously sell it. You can simply sell all of your salvage to a scrapyard.
'Unidentified salvage' isn't worth very much. 'Identified salvage' is worth a bit more, 'Unusual salvage' is worth quite a bit, 'Identified Unusual Salvage' is worth the most, but you would need to take that to an engineer to be identified first.
Module Assembly
Scrapyards and Engineer bases now all have workshops. You can store a huge amount of Salvage Components in workshops. Only Engineers can assemble modules using Modified Components. You can only use 1 workshop at a time. There is no 'magic chest' to access from anywhere.
PowerPlay modules can not be assembled or disassembled.
From here, you have a list of all available modules, similar to the Engineers screen, which can be filtered, and will auto sort by modules you can currently build using available salvage, at the top.
In order to build any modules, you will need all components in the list, plus some basic materials and data.
Obviously some modules can be incredibly expensive, so their recipe will require a lot of components, which will take time to gather.
Once all the components are in place, you press 'assemble' and it's done and added to your stored modules. (Assembly not available if module storage is full).
You can then equip, or sell these modules.
Modified Module Assembly
Using 'Identified Unusual Components', you can ask your Engineer to assemble a pre-modified module. Each component will have a quite small stat change, 1 positive, and 1 negative effect. You can stack these, but identical improvements have diminishing returns (to prevent you making a mega modifed 100t module).
Module Disassembly
Any module can also be broken down in to components, materials and data. But you won't get 100% of the recipe to remake it, you'll always lose some in the process.
Modified modules can only be disassembled at Engineer bases, and you can regain some of the materials put in to the modification.
Storage and Workshops
You can buy a one off payment workshop, which comes with storage for your cargo components, and additional data and material storage.
Larger workshops cost more, but hold more of each type.
Summary
Having a fully fledged Salvage career would be an excellent addition to ED.
It can be used as a whole new type of gameplay. Players can come together and trade parts to make modules, or pirate each other to steal them.
You could also save a significant amount of money by putting in more effort in to building a module, than you would simply saving the money. This in turn would also lower your rebuy.
Thoughts?
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
