Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: RawCode on January 10, 2019, 07:03:42 AM
-
Well, typical situation, player depart into fringe world by taking "quests" for systems in same direction (or ever in same system).
Before departure, player managed to waste 6 skill points on looting, got 4 salvage gantries and 10k of free cargo capacity, in order to "feed" swarm of cargo ships, he got multiple tankers and 2k of supplies.
Player is not big fan of useless time wasting related to hyperspace storms, and just got spare supplies instead.
System after system, just trash, some common metals, some useless common weapons, deathball of pirates dropped like 400 supplies (with +100% bonus to loot) then sudden planet survey provided 1500 of transplutonics, but rest of cargo is just trash.
Entire exploration mission, that burned 2k of supplies and 10k of fuel, provided just 300k of loot money, that barely cover costs related to additional ships required to carry loot around.
Conclusion:
Getting small and fast fleet for quests is MUCH MORE profitable then looting everything, and come with no penalties to rare loot.
Also faster fleet allows to move around faster and increase amount of rare loot you can find.
-
I totally agree with your conclusion here. I do believe that the salvaging playstyle should be more viable.
That said, here's how I'm fixing this situation currently.
1. All my fleets always travel at Burn 20. I always use Militarized Subsystems and Augmented Drive field on Prometheus and Atlas. I keep everything at Burn 9, and which gets boosted to 10 with my Navigation skill.
2. I try to use Solar Shielding wherever possible.
3. There are two skills which reduce supply and fuel consumption by 25% respectively. I always take those.
4. To make sure my missions are profitable, I will always take exploration missions in the same vicinity of the map I'm headed towards. If I can line up 3-6 missions in the same quadrant of the map, I can complete them all, while still having time to salvage.
-
For missions, it is best to bring the minimum and keep burn at 20. The main reason to explore aside from missions (for easy money or rep building) is to 1) Find rare items like blueprints and nanoforges and 2) Good planets to colonize, whether temporary tech mines or permanent settlement with low hazard and lots of resources.
The Salvaging skill is good either for preliminary survey or extra rare loot, which is not enough to burn three points for it. I would say the better rare loot skill is Planetary Operations so that you need fewer marines to effectively raid for valuables (and blueprints at the markets with Heavy Industry).
-
without taking 2-3 missions in same area, going for salvage is not profitable.
attacking derelicts due to scaling of said derelicts, profitable only if you attack them yourself without AI support, but this become quite boring really fast.
-
Could you define salvage expeditions? Is salvage different from exploration? My experience doesn't match yours.
I go out all the time with an exploration fleet and come back stuffed to the gills with survey data, rare metals, machinery, volatiles, blueprints, synch cores + corrupt nanoforges... heck I have to discard 1/2 the loot I find because I run out of cargo space. Easily a few hundred thousands in value from a successful run, not even counting any missions along the way.
This is with no skills and usually no salvage rigs, only a few Shepherds which help with both salvaging and surveys.
-
it would be an expedition trying to profit from salvaging as a playstyle, as opposed to rares looting (blueprints, synch cores, etc.) which any fleet loots about equally.
-
flying around without taking quests is not profitable, if you take in account ~100k for scanning derelict that do not need anything at all, not profitable at all.
-
There's a difference between not profitable and less profitable and you seem to be confusing them. Of course not taking a mission pays less - but it doesn't pay nothing.
-
it "a lot less profitable" and unlikely to provide income required to expand your fleet or fuel your colonies, flying hours just to replenish supplies is not "profitable"
-
I've always found it to be profitable, it the small things like weapons, blueprints,forges and planet survey data (as long as you got that to 5 supplies per use) that make your money.
-
I'm actually doing a salvaging playthrough right now, and my mileage varies quite a bit.
I'm not allowed to buy or restore ships, and all three salvage skills are mandatory (Recovery Operations, Field Repairs, Salvaging). With that in mind, the real prize are the ships that I manage to salvage. Recovered drone tenders provide the Salvage Gantry and Surveying Equipment as well as cargo space.
Expecting 10k worth of expensive loot is not very sensible for the premise of a scavenger. Metals and even transplutonics is all trash that you can get in the core worlds, there's no reason to travel all the way to the sector's edge to get them. My goal in such expeditions is to loot mining stations and orbital habitats, and hopefully salvage some rare derelict or two. That expectation/reality works rather well here.
I just salvaged a pristine Heron from some random battle between hostile factions, btw. Now I'll be able to acquire ships at a much better pace.
-
rare loot is "special", you can get equal amount of rare loot by visiting research or mining station by lone wolf, compared to fleet with 10 salvage gantries.
as bonuses for "normal" salvage do not apply to rare loot.
-
flying around without taking quests is not profitable, if you take in account ~100k for scanning derelict that do not need anything at all, not profitable at all.
I don't know what you mean. I go out, I get valuable loot and explore the sector, I come back and cash in for a couple hundred K.
rare loot is "special", you can get equal amount of rare loot by visiting research or mining station by lone wolf, compared to fleet with 10 salvage gantries.
as bonuses for "normal" salvage do not apply to rare loot.
So what exactly do you mean by a "salvage expedition"? Just because we always get rare loot doesn't mean we.... don't get it? Like you can sell it for large profits if you want.
-
So... the reason your expedition wasnt profitable was simple
You left wih a full cargo hull.
How could you possibly expect to make money if you left with the thing you expected to make you money (free cargo space) already consumed?
A colossus with efficiency upgrades and expanded cargo holds has 1170 cargo, 7.2 supplies per month, and 2.4 fuel per l/y. A phaeton has 780 fuel, 3.4 supplies, and 1.6 consumption. So if you habe 8 of each you have around those values while consuming 32 fuel/l/y and 86 supplies/month.
So you spent 20 months of supplies(plus whatever you found out there, minus whatrver combat you broight) and 312 l/y of fuel in order to fly through hyperspace storms without solar shielding or mitigation.
Well duh you didnt make any money
-
Metals and even transplutonics is all trash that you can get in the core worlds, there's no reason to travel all the way to the sector's edge to get them.
I like to hold on to transplutonics and 10X the amount of metals so i can sprinkle comms throughout the sector. It allows me to see if there are any missions to be had near where i'm exploring.
Any metals much beyond 10X what i have of transplutonics is left to float however
-
building relays everywhere to get constant stream of quests is win button.
but without relying on quests, exploring is not profitable by itself, you have chance to get rare loot, but you not going to sell pforge or score, as it will give much more money if installed on colony.
-
building relays everywhere to get constant stream of quests is win button.
but without relying on quests, exploring is not profitable by itself, you have chance to get rare loot, but you not going to sell pforge or score, as it will give much more money if installed on colony.
: shrug : Then you are doing it wrong. Sorry, but I make decent money with no-mission exploration/salvage without selling anything rare other than unwanted blueprints. Without any industry skills either.
I can certainly make money faster by doing other things, but thats not really what we are talking about. My main activity is exploration for a good planet and blueprints, and I happen to see cool things and make a lot of money along the way.
-
I like exploring with a smaller fleet and marking research stations etc. for looting once I get more cargo space. The main problem I tend to have with salvaging is that I cannot get enough cargo space to carry all of the not very valuable stuff.
I also like to stick to burn 10 when possible. The Colossus can reach burn 10 with Mil Systems and Aug Drive Field.
-
My method has to take the skills to lower overall maintenance of ships as they have more defects, then get the skill that lowers those effects too. Then I start to use salvage rigs and transports that might have 3 or 4 negative hull mods on them and they become super cheap to lug around. It allows me a lot of room to carry fuel and supplies and then bring back whatever I find. I even use a lot of my combat ships with a few hull mods as long as their burn drives aren't affected or I can get a tug or two later to help offset it.
-
I make decent money with no-mission exploration/salvage without selling anything rare other than unwanted blueprints.
Same.
While salvage runs won't make you a huge pile of money right now, they do make money. And a decent amount of it. It's just delayed compared to how missions work.
But the major draw of taking a huge salvage fleet out is that once you have enough support from your fleet/skills, it becomes self-sustaining. You can stay out on the fringe indefinitely just by sucking up debris, wrecks and derelicts. And beacon systems, pirate lairs, and pather haunts become valuable supply depots. Suppiles and fuel become essentially free (so long as you can fight), and the only real constraints you have are crew, cargo space, and patience.
Honestly, I usually start a game doing transport missions in the core, and once I feel like I have enough money just go and do my own thing and forget missions even exist for the rest of the game.
Stripping the sector bare like a swarm of space locusts is plenty profitable.
-
Month into the game i found 3 fuel-thingie-things each costing 400k,
So far it seems salvage/survey expeditions are the most profitable thing ever.
You have to plan your survey trips in clusters or you will waste a ton of money on fuel.
Make sure you have survey modules on your ships so you reduce price of machinery and supplies to minimum.
Gantries kinda succ.
Use (D) ships as much as you can with the skill that reduces maintenance cost of (D) ships (as a scav you should have that skill tree anyway).
P.S.
I've never bothered focusing on "survey missions" as such however, they are always on the edge of space (that means you will waste stupid amounts of fuel and supplies) and usually its [REDACTED]
-
I once made 1.6 million credits in a single run, git good, OP, and don't bring unnecessary ships.
-
Lol Salvage Gantry users...
You use not Salvage Gantrys, but 6 or 8 Shepherds for it. Or Katrina or others small Salvage Gantry ships... to this you take a one or two tankers, one or two militarised Collosus and Voila. You have fleet to reach everywhere.
Few ships for battle to fend off smaller fleets of Remnants or other *** and you have everything you need.
-
Month into the game i found 3 fuel-thingie-things each costing 400k,
So far it seems salvage/survey expeditions are the most profitable thing ever.
You have to plan your survey trips in clusters or you will waste a ton of money on fuel.
Make sure you have survey modules on your ships so you reduce price of machinery and supplies to minimum.
Gantries kinda succ.
Use (D) ships as much as you can with the skill that reduces maintenance cost of (D) ships (as a scav you should have that skill tree anyway).
P.S.
I've never bothered focusing on "survey missions" as such however, they are always on the edge of space (that means you will waste stupid amounts of fuel and supplies) and usually its [REDACTED]
you do not need ships for rare loot......
it's possible to get multiple millions from single run, but all this money come from blueprints and forges\scores, not "loot" itself.
-
Lol Salvage Gantry users...
You use not Salvage Gantrys, but 6 or 8 Shepherds for it. Or Katrina or others small Salvage Gantry ships... to this you take a one or two tankers, one or two militarised Collosus and Voila. You have fleet to reach everywhere.
Few ships for battle to fend off smaller fleets of Remnants or other *** and you have everything you need.
there's a stacking penalty, 8 shepherds is pointless in terms of the gantry. A few shepherds + 1 gantry is a good combo though.
-
there's a stacking penalty, 8 shepherds is pointless in terms of the gantry. A few shepherds + 1 gantry is a good combo though.
What's this? What is the stacking penalty, or the correct number of shepherds? I've used multiple shepherds before and did not notice a stacking penalty.
-
there's a stacking penalty, 8 shepherds is pointless in terms of the gantry. A few shepherds + 1 gantry is a good combo though.
What's this? What is the stacking penalty, or the correct number of shepherds? I've used multiple shepherds before and did not notice a stacking penalty.
If you mouse over the hullmod in the refit screen, it'll tell you how your current ships stack. After 4-5 Shepherds, each ship adds maybe 1-2% to the salvage chance.
-
this called "diminishing returns" and spamming salvage ships is waste of ship slots after 3 such ships, as addition of new ship, decrease eff of ALL ships, and keeping gantry for 1% of vendor trash is just waste.
-
Stacking Shepards has a pretty strange diminishing returns for total resource recovery bonus. It goes like this:
1 Shepherd = 10%
2 Shepherd = 18%
3 Shepherd = 22%
4 Shepherd = 25%
5 Shepherd = 28%
6 Shepherd = 30%
7 Shepherd = 31%
8 Shepherd = 33%
Fleetwide Post battle salvage probably diminishes too but the bonus is miniscule anyways so that it doesn't matter. I don't know why diminishing returns exist anyways, since if someone wants to get 10 Salvage Gantries for +250% resource recovery that doesn't sound like much of a problem to me.
Salvage Gantries are more ship slot, supply and fuel efficient, but I've never seen the point of getting Salvage Gantries since I get Shepherds for their Surveying Equipment, or for combat, or for Cargo, or otherwise not care that much for increasing normal salvaging. If you care you can choose 3 ranks of Salvaging skill, and get +50% resource recovery from debris which is merely stacked, not multiplied by Salvage Gantries anyways.
-
I take shepherds for surveying, the salvage is just a nice bonus. Once I get a bigger fleet, I phase them out since I can survey for minimum supplies anyway. By that point, the income from salvage is minuscule compared to colonies anyway.
-
Odd, I find expeditions to be plenty profitable as is.....but that might be because I don't return until I've scoured several systems back and fourth.
Thats it's called an expedition, you might have to search through 5+ systems and spend whole in-game weeks/months to make a profit.
-
do not mix rare loot and vendor trash, yes you can get profit by looting blueprints, weapons and special items, but they do not follow normal rules and do not need any salvage ships to get.
no matter how large or small your fleet is, you will get same amount of rare loot.
single wolf can and will get stack of valueble blueprints from research station, at same time, hurge expedition will get exactly same amount of blueprints (at much greater cost) and just a little bit more vendor trash.
-
Anything that involves you heading out into the void, even if without a mission, has to be small. At most have an SO Lasher to handle single Remnants/Probes, have a Phaeton and a Collosus and maybe a Shepard or two and you can go for months on end. There is no real use for you to have a massive 'salvaging fleet'. Past a certain point which comes really quickly, you're wasting a lot of supplies/fuel for just the ability to hold future stuff, most of which has little to no value. Stacks of organics or metals should just be jettisoned anyway.
-
yet again, someone try argument "you play it wrong".
thx bro, i know and point of this thread exactly this, game should not have "superior" and "inferior" routes, each game play route should have it's pros and cons.
atm trying to get money from loot is strictly inferior to just setting colony on 100% world and AFK for hour.
-
yet again, someone try argument "you play it wrong".
thx bro, i know and point of this thread exactly this, game should not have "superior" and "inferior" routes, each game play route should have it's pros and cons.
atm trying to get money from loot is strictly inferior to just setting colony on 100% world and AFK for hour.
The argument is not that you "play it wrong", but that the amount of supplies needed grows proportionally to the distance you travel. With a bigger fleet, you need to have either a higher quantity of lootable objects, a higher amount of loot per object, or a smaller fleet.
Since the amount of lootable objects is determined during worldgen (with the exception of random fleets you can attack along the way), there is a hard cap on the size of the fleet that would make such a trip "profitable".
-
and this "hardcap" do not include fleet with ever single salvage gantry...
-
Whenever I go on a salvaging run, it's a given that I find a nearby scan package mission beforehand. This alone is enough to make a trip to the fringe worth it, but I also get quite a good deal of riches and loot from salvaging - Domain-Era structures and other derelicts are more than enough to sustain your fleet until you return to the core systems. Don't take a war fleet out to explore, spec into the right skills for what you're doing, etc.