Why is salvaging not a viable Elite career? Why is it illegal?

[SRRAE]

Why can't we have space salvaging as a viable way of making Cr in Elite Dangerous?
Flying around space I tend to ignore the signal sources I find because if I do find a wreckage I can't really do anything with it. All of it is classed as illegal. I could scoop it but then I run the risk of being fined or attacked and if I do manage to dock, it sells for a fraction of what its worth.

Seriously this should be a very simple thing to fix, if there's cargo from a signal source, it should not be illegal to pick up.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Why can't we have space salvaging as a viable way of making Cr in Elite Dangerous?
Flying around space I tend to ignore the signal sources I find because if I do find a wreckage I can't really do anything with it. All of it is classed as illegal. I could scoop it but then I run the risk of being fined or attacked and if I do manage to dock, it sells for a fraction of what its worth.

Seriously this should be a very simple thing to fix, if there's cargo from a signal source, it should not be illegal to pick up.

I agree, but I think it's how E: D defines piracy, ie "cargo that you didn't buy or receive as part of a mission" is illegal.

Mind you, even that isn't always the case though. Stuff on planetary surfaces inside trespass zones is often fine to pick up once you've dealt with the skimmers.

So, yeah. Odd one.

 

[Devari]

Why can't we have space salvaging as a viable way of making Cr in Elite Dangerous?
Flying around space I tend to ignore the signal sources I find because if I do find a wreckage I can't really do anything with it. All of it is classed as illegal. I could scoop it but then I run the risk of being fined or attacked and if I do manage to dock, it sells for a fraction of what its worth.

Seriously this should be a very simple thing to fix, if there's cargo from a signal source, it should not be illegal to pick up.

They have actually made some changes so that occupied escape pods (which were previously always considered illegal salvage) are now legal, as well as some other types of cargo. You CAN make some decent profits off of certain cargo, for example, data caches and other high-value cargo, although they often remain illegal.

The main reason for this is that you don't own the cargo just because you find it floating in space and it's therefore not actually yours to take, any more than you could go to a car that was sitting on the side of the road after the owner ran out of gas and claim it as "salvage" while the owner was walking to a gas station. The cargo still has a legal owner who has claim over the goods in most cases.

What would be interesting is being able to salvage materials and components directly from shipwrecks. The most we can currently do is to gather micromaterials at shipwreck USSs, but it would be nice to actually be able to salvage shipwrecks hulls for raw materials as well, possibly with a mining laser the way we do with asteroids.

Star Citizen is actually implementing ship salvage and processing of raw materials as an actual career, they actually have a large specialized salvage ship as well with an industrial claw and other specialized attachments to break apart and process ship wrecks:

 

[Nalessa]

There should still be a tab in the contacts board, kind of like a lost and found section.

You don't get to sell the cargo, but you can return it for a cash reward that's smaller then the cargo's sale value.

 

[Jaiotu]

There should still be a tab in the contacts board, kind of like a lost and found section.

You don't get to sell the cargo, but you can return it for a cash reward that's smaller then the cargo's sale value.

This could be exploited by pirates. I agree with the general premise, however. I'd like to have an option to "emancipate" slaves as well.

 

[Abomination]

Simple solution: anarchy = steal whatever you want.
Legal to sell in anarchy or to pirate factions, illegal in others.
Yet another good reason to make these systems more dangerous because they can be a decent source of income.

Also like Nalessa's idea, but then it needs to be legal everywhere.
Maybe legal to carry, illegal to sell normally?
Don't know how that should work though unless we have legs and need to carry the cargo to the buyer around ourselves, with chance of meeting some police officers.

 

[K-NINE]

Star Citizen is actually implementing ship salvage and processing of raw materials as an actual career, they actually have a large specialized salvage ship as well with an industrial claw and other specialized attachments to break apart and process ship wrecks:

Of course they do...

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

A shortcut to this would be to have a "fence" or "resetter" or "hacker" iun suitably shady star ports who could reprogram the transponder tags on the cargo canisters for a fee.

Salvaging ships though - as much as I would want to do that as a career, I admit that it will take a lot of work to make it happen.

 

[Patau82]

Salvaging in space is generally considered illegal but surface salvaging is not!

 

[Miklos Atreides]

I agree, but I think it's how E: D defines piracy, ie "cargo that you didn't buy or receive as part of a mission" is illegal.

Mind you, even that isn't always the case though. Stuff on planetary surfaces inside trespass zones is often fine to pick up once you've dealt with the skimmers.

So, yeah. Odd one.

Sorry to correct you but its a weired thing.

If you salvage things in space its stolen goods. If you find the same thing on a planets surface it isn't. Nevertheless the request itself is valid.
Salvaging goods should be a viable profession. For my likings there should be offered contracts in systems Stations to slavage amount of containers
or time bound right to bring in salvage goods. in uncontrolled systems there should be, you gess it, no regulation, hence no stolen flags.

On the other hand if bringing in salvaged goods without having a contract the fines should be harsh (in that case they are assumed stolen) if cought in the act.
Otherwise the balckmarket is your point to sell them.

Regards,

Miklos

 

[MrReynolds]

Think I said this in Beta: Should be a rank progression reward.
Once you get through a threshold you can purchase a salvage license for the system. Then all that loot can be sold legally - wither at the market or at a secondary market like the current black market - at a slightly lower price than market value.

shouldn't be hard to implement. LOL - famous last words.

Remember in the '84 Elite this was one of my primary ways of earning Money. Bounty + salvage = win

 

[Viscera]

Not sure of the issue here. One of my favourite past times in elite.

Drop in and collect salvage.

Evade scans into appropiate station.

Sell on black market for lots of profit.

Or do it on a planet for legal goods.

And as a bonus you can usually pull a few bounties together too.

 

[Mole HD]

There used to be salvage missions on the message board before one or other of the nerfs...largely disappeared now of course unless you count the silly spam type things that replaced them.

Another underdeveloped career choice that would hold appeal, certainly for me at any rate. Deep space salvage with appropriate salvage license as suggested above...

 

[Watcher]

Well, you can take salvage missions and do the whole salvage thing that way. Some places seem to sprout huge numbers of these so you could do it is a reasonable viable career - for a bit anyway.
I agree though. Even if salvage is generally considered illegal it would be nice to be able to acquire some sort of salvage license. Perhaps this would apply to specific minor factions or at the level of the super-powers, perhaps both.. I envisage this as something you could only get with a sufficiently high factional ranking and being clean.. If you become wanted then you would either lose the license entirely or it would, at least, be temporarily revoked.
One day perhaps..

 

[Chazzie]

I don't understand why we can't purchase a Salvage license, this would allow us to collect salvage legally and sell it for a percentage of its actual value as a 'finders fee' from the original owner.

A different version of this is a timed license that expires in several days or so - so you would have to work at it to make it pay, or let it expire and go back to your old ways if it did not work.
In my opinion this would validate the whole salvage idea and make a potential career out of it like mining.

Ninja'd by Watcher - obviously like minded!

 

[tarks382]

They have actually made some changes so that occupied escape pods (which were previously always considered illegal salvage) are now legal, as well as some other types of cargo. You CAN make some decent profits off of certain cargo, for example, data caches and other high-value cargo, although they often remain illegal.

The main reason for this is that you don't own the cargo just because you find it floating in space and it's therefore not actually yours to take, any more than you could go to a car that was sitting on the side of the road after the owner ran out of gas and claim it as "salvage" while the owner was walking to a gas station. The cargo still has a legal owner who has claim over the goods in most cases.

What would be interesting is being able to salvage materials and components directly from shipwrecks. The most we can currently do is to gather micromaterials at shipwreck USSs, but it would be nice to actually be able to salvage shipwrecks hulls for raw materials as well, possibly with a mining laser the way we do with asteroids.

Star Citizen is actually implementing ship salvage and processing of raw materials as an actual career, they actually have a large specialized salvage ship as well with an industrial claw and other specialized attachments to break apart and process ship wrecks:

http://i.imgur.com/awZk3uj.jpg

Correction: they have a picture of one. "IN CONCEPT: Hull concept complete". Like my Banu Merchantman which I've owned for, ummm... two years on Friday.

 

[Mole HD]

Well, you can take salvage missions and do the whole salvage thing that way. Some places seem to sprout huge numbers of these so you could do it is a reasonable viable career - for a bit anyway.
I agree though. Even if salvage is generally considered illegal it would be nice to be able to acquire some sort of salvage license. Perhaps this would apply to specific minor factions or at the level of the super-powers, perhaps both.. I envisage this as something you could only get with a sufficiently high factional ranking and being clean.. If you become wanted then you would either lose the license entirely or it would, at least, be temporarily revoked.
One day perhaps..

I'm not talking about the current missions readily available...there were deep space salvage missions, roughly the same type 'Go here and collect black boxes or trade data' but they weren't spammed around some non existent BGS nonsense. They were neutral and not tied in with the local mafia wanting to cause aggro.

 

[Iskariot]

Why can't we have space salvaging as a viable way of making Cr in Elite Dangerous?
Flying around space I tend to ignore the signal sources I find because if I do find a wreckage I can't really do anything with it. All of it is classed as illegal. I could scoop it but then I run the risk of being fined or attacked and if I do manage to dock, it sells for a fraction of what its worth.

Seriously this should be a very simple thing to fix, if there's cargo from a signal source, it should not be illegal to pick up.

I agree.
I think Salvaging could be one of the coolest careers in Elite's universe.
For that to happen there will have to be more interesting mechanics added to the game, I feel.
For example there could be salvaging licenses you might buy, or earn.
These licenses could be valid per territory of the powerplay powers.

I would like there to be specialized salvaging tools in the game, and a specialized Salvage SRV too perhaps.
There might also be salvage stations in the game that look the part, where salvagers go to sell their stuff.
This would then add some extra visual diversity to the ED universe too.

 

[SRRAE]

I don't think it needs to be as complex as it sounds.

-Cargo from a ship destroyed in combat be it a player or NPC then illegal (unless in a lawless system)
- Cargo found in wreckages from unknown signals should be legal.

The idea of permits adds a variation or different systems could have a salvage tax which could change depending on your rating with the local authorities.

Either way I think it is a large area which people could enjoy participating in and could be a good way to start in the game, as it gets you exploring, practice piloting a ship and you can make money just from the cost of your fuel.

 

[Madrax573]

I salvage a lot and make decent enough money from it.

I think that a lot of people assume that stuff lying around is free to take. It's not. As mentioned above, if a car is 'abandoned' by the road you don't have legal rights to take stuff of it and if caught you will be charged for theft etc. Same in the space lanes of Elite.

I actually find that getting it to a station etc that has a black market to get rid of the stuff some of the most fun I've had, avoiding scans etc and smuggling the stuff in and whatnot.