Salvaging Concept?

[Dark Thoughts]

So I was thinking about a (relatively) easy way to implement salvaging into Elite Dangerous by using current game mechanics,
which would save time as well as resources, while still providing an additional and hopefully fun profession, more missions
and hopefully additional immersion through variety.

My main idea is basically that we borrow a lot of features that are already used, most notably from mining.
- The mining laser could either get a similar model for salvaging but with different properties, or be renamed
to fit towards both professions.
- Instead of mining asteroids we're obviously "mining" ship wrecks, the requirement being that they're mostly
intact and not just floating hull debris. This would probably require a bit of adjustments, especially for
combat so that maybe not all ships pop into an explosion but rather get disabled / broken (most likely the
area requiring the most effort because it would probably require more models). Another area would be signal
sources and a greater variety, or even specific salvaging missions coming with their own mission related
signal source types. Further exploration mechanic overhauls in terms of scanning could improve this area as
well if we ever get a more active / interesting way of finding signal sources.
- Another area is obviously the potential yield. The engineers added a lot of materials but also commodities
that easily could be considered to be parts of ship components, a lot of them probably a bit too cheap to be
valuable enough but since they aren't really used for much else at the moment we could either increase their
value or add more valuable components that we could salvage from ships like core components of FSDs or something
along those lines that would sell for quite a bit of money. Unlike asteroids ships can obviously yield all types
of salvage, from crappy ones to highly valuable ones and you cannot easily predict what you get except maybe
based on the ship type / size (an Anaconda probably yields more / higher valuable stuff compared to a Sidewinder),
this means there's a good amount of RNG involved which probably would need a bit of balancing attention in regards of what
components can pop out of a ship considering that everything comes at a minimum amount of 1 ton (stillwant an overhaul in
that regard that would allow for small but high value cargo transports).
- BGS implementations could also allow for the generation of huge huge debris fields in areas where conflict
zones happened. Could even be tied together with the coming megaships by having a salvage type megaship or
freighter one sitting there where you can easily sell the salvage you gathered in those fields. Similar to
extraction sites those fields would obviously lure in pirates who also want their fair share of resources
(just for less work though).
- Multicrew and turreted variants of the salvaging laser (?) would also allow for some potential group play,
especially while other members could also sit on regular weapon turrets to fend of potential pirates or other
threats, still active mines is something I haven't seen at all, maybe even minefields which are dangerous but
also potentially lucrative by providing high value tarets such as wrecks of megaships or battlecruisers or
maybe even Thargoid ships (big mines in this case shouldn't be targetable by point defense but actual ship weapons) ...

So, higher RNG aside a pro thing would probably be the fact that one doesn't need a prospector drone, nor a refinery.
Enough cargo, a salvaging laser and maybe some regular old limpets would probably enough to get started which means
it is also a bit easier from an entry point for newer players compared to mining.

It could also "easily" be expanded in future versions of Elite.
- One thing that would already be possible would be salvaging (and mining) vehicles for the hangar.
- Additionally if we ever get a way to physically transport ship modules in our ships this could also be used
to maybe salvage intact modules out of other ships to either sell or use in your own ship, making it a
profession where you could progress your ship fitting through the activity itself rather than the credits
you make.
- And, if we ever get space legs it might offer an expandable way to board and repair ships for your own use
or to sell them by sending them remotely to a station. Repairing a ship, especially a big one would obviously
require a lot of time and resources and the longer it takes the higher the risk gets that pirates might show up.

Personally I think this is very much doable without spending too much effort and resources for entirely new mechanics,
UI elements, etc. that wouldn't fit into the roadmap at the moment.

Thoughts / further ideas?

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I dropped in on a combat aftermath signal source last night and found a rake of the usual debris in the vicinity of an intact but battle scarred conda. This discovery got me thinking that I really wish there was someway to interact with it, either to tow it back to a starport and fix it up / sell it on / scrap it or as you suggest to canabalize it there where it lay for fsd powerplant thrusters etc...

I really hope they didnt make the models just as background decoration complete with laser scars and ejected pilots seats etc and that there are plans to allow us to interact with them in future? I'd envisage recovering the damaged ship would need a full wing of four pilots in matched ships to act as tugs at each corner of the wrecked ship and this convoy would be limited to 0.99C in supercruise travel with massive mass lock factor slowing down the charge of the fsd. SO with such handicaps, me and my imaginary wing of salvos could make a proffit of a hundred mil or more to be shared amongst thewing, not per pilot) from salvaging repairing and ultimately selling that conda but that big pay day would require expensive ships, teamwork, time and talent - to me thats the sort of stuff I'd like to see added to this game.

Edit - Another quick thought, killing two birds here with one stone, why not make the salvage of wrecked ships available as missions only available to wings of four where the BGS faction offers them a mission to recover a crippled ship at a prescribed location to a designated starport? Other than your new towing equipment, very little new models are needed and it would be a completely new chapter of gameplay, some true multiplayer coop play more meaningful challenging and rewarding than winging up and owning a haz res or a CZ.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I had an idea a while back, that modules could be dismantled in to handy "components" for transportation, kinda like manufactured materials, but cargo.
This was pre-module transfer.

This could then be applied to your salvage idea, that you can extract components from wrecks(shoot it with a mining laser, collect the bits that drop off as cargo), and take them home and store them, (rent a workshop).
Once you have enough components to make a whole module, you assemble it, using the components and various data and materials.
You can then transfer the module to your module storage, or sell it for profit.

Of course, what you get from a wreck is quite RNG, so it'll take some effort to find all the components for 1 module, especially if that module is huge class 8 power plant or something.


And there you have it. A Salvage career.