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Author Topic: Salvage exploit  (Read 3742 times)

Mar Sara

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Salvage exploit
« on: September 12, 2019, 04:06:52 AM »

I just realized today that repairing and scuttling salvaged ships not only returns all the supplies you used on the repairs, but matches it in free fuel! It's the only thing I've seen to make salvaged ships worth it.
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goduranus

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2019, 05:12:17 AM »

It's not an exploit, cuz you have to bring a lot of spare crew to repair the ships you recover, and you have to pay the extra crew a salary. If you don't bring this extra crew you will not be able to repair the ships you recover.

Mar Sara

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2019, 08:09:42 AM »

I'll give a few more steps as I thought it would be more self explanatory.
1. Find some ships to salvage. You don't need to meet it's salvage requirements at all. ;)
2. recover the ships, and immediately mothball them! This prevents all costs outside of hyperspace (still uses fuel in hyperspace) as long as you're fast, you will not receive any penalty for insufficient crew.
3. Take them to a base where you can repair your fleet.
4. At the fleet screen inside the base, strip down and un-mothball one ship that you have sufficient supplies to repair.
5. repair in the text dialogue (crew is not required while docked)
6. Scuttle the ship for a full refund of supplies and an equal amount of free fuel.
7. Un- mothball the next ship and repeat!

I've made over 200,000 on free fuel since discovering this! :D
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goduranus

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2019, 08:15:10 AM »

Yeah, but you had to burn fuel to bring the mothballs back to a friendly base.
For most ships it's actually more profitable to repair then sell the ship, only for some freighters and certain crappy destroyers and frigates is it more profitable to scuttle them.

LucusLoC

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2019, 08:36:04 AM »

oh, you need to repair ships before you sell them? Is that why I only get a few thousand credits for a ship that costs multiple tens of thousands to buy "new" when I bring them in? I may have to reevaluate the value of my massive flying scrap fleet in storage around my main colony. . .
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Mar Sara

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2019, 09:03:27 AM »

No, all used ships are sold at a tiny fraction of the buy price. thus most ships aren't worth salvage. only big ships sell for more than the supply cost. And I usually sell/ scrap ships in the same system I recover them in, thus no fule cost. Just find a system with a P base and H military base close to eachother ;) starting fights is fun!
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mvp7

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2019, 09:16:08 AM »

Such time consuming activity hardly seems like an exploit considering how cheap the fuel is anyway. I think the main reason for the "free fuel" from scuttling is that you get what you would if you salvaged the ship. It also gives you the option to exchange a ship for tiny bit of fuel if you are stranded and desperate.
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Mar Sara

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2019, 10:42:47 AM »

I think the main reason for the "free fuel" from scuttling is that you get what you would if you salvaged the ship.

Yes, I agree. I was just surprised that I can get 30-200 fuel instead of the innital 10 or so and get all the supplies back. This is really more a work around for the crippled ship market than a game breaking exploit anyway. Only about 20-40 % net profit per ship after all.
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mvp7

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2019, 12:26:24 PM »

I think the main reason for the "free fuel" from scuttling is that you get what you would if you salvaged the ship.

Yes, I agree. I was just surprised that I can get 30-200 fuel instead of the innital 10 or so and get all the supplies back. This is really more a work around for the crippled ship market than a game breaking exploit anyway. Only about 20-40 % net profit per ship after all.

Yeah. Although I wouldn't call the ship market crippled even if the negligible profit from selling ships doesn't make much sense from realism point of view.

Many more or less similar games suffer from a situation where good gear is expensive (so it can't be bought right away) but when player starts looting large amounts of good gear and sells it, it will quickly become such massive source of income that everything else (like mission rewards and actual trading) is not worth the bother. Massive inflation is pretty much impossible to avoid.

Most iterations of Mount & Blade have this kind of economy. Buying trade resources is a waste of time since it's easier to fill your inventory with expensive loot to sell. Even various rewards for the missions are secondary in comparison to what you can make from the loot with minimal planning and investment. The main economical issue becomes finding traders who still have some money left to buy your stuff. In addition you can largely avoid buying anything yourself since you can easily use the high quality looted gear yourself.

In Starsector the weapons are cheap having little economic impact either way and the extremely low ship selling prices together with the D-mods and supply cost of repairs make sure that restoring ships is something you usually only do if you want the ship for your fleet. If you want good ships you'll generally have to buy them or pay even more for restoring damaged ships.

You still get metals, machines, fuel and weapons from destroyed and salvaged ships so you can make some money but not so much that rewards and trading would be irrelevant. Selling blueprints, AI and other relics makes you a lot of money but they are limited treasures you find exploring the outer systems rather than residue of the endless battles you can fight right next to the traders.
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Daynen

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Re: Salvage exploit
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2019, 03:35:27 PM »

If you're not running heavy industry skills to improve your salvaged ships, salvaging a ship for money isn't really worth the effort most times, IMHO.  If it's a ship you're looking for, cool; the d-mods on most salvaged stuff tank the resell value to worthless levels though, especially since most salvaged ships have 3 or more d-mods without skills.  Since you get more supplies/fuel/metal/whatever for just skipping recovery anyway, I don't usually bother.

Now if I'm within arm's reach of a market and I find, say, a capital ship with only 2 d-mods then maaaaaybe it's worth taking it in.  If I'm hurting for cash.
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