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[Bigsky]

As titled, what are your usual guidelines on which ships you recover after battle instead of throwing into the rig's grinder? I often veer too much on one side or another (either salvage nothing but capitals and end up with a 'endgame' fleet without the economy to.back.it up or recover too many junkyard dogs and end up looking more like a pirate than an actual one, I'm also probably too stingy with budgeting my story points, often banking up towards 20 without bothering to spend any)

[Antelope Syrup]

I don't have a ruleset, if I see a ship I've been looking for that doesn't have like 4 D-mods, I salvage it.

[Fenrir]

either a useful ship I could make use of almost immediately in early game, or a prized rare ship I would like to add to my collection in late game.

[Doctorhealsgood]

If it is a ship i want i take it.
If it is a ship that is rare to see i also take it if i don't have enough already.
After that i just store them and decide how to change up my fleet from there

[Daynen]

I don't bother with ships that are regular and common.  Anything smaller than a destroyer is basically out; those are cheap and everywhere.  Only ships I'm specifically trying to find are worth a look, only if they're not loaded with D-mods and IDEALLY not costing a story point because I'd rather use those on things like S-mods, colony improvements, elite skills and evading bad engagements.  Besides, even the game tells you the math: salvaging and restoring a junked ship is going to return less value than the scuttling and that's BEFORE you consider the extra cost if you're undercrewed.  Hell, even if you brought tons of extra crew just for salvaging, you're paying their salary every month anyway.

In other words, I only salvage ships I SPECIFICALLY want AND don't expect to see again anytime soon.  The rest I can build with heavy industry anyway.

[Bigsky]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

[Aeson]

As to the salvaging question: hulls are rarely if ever worth picking up for their resale value, so I only recover ships if I actually want them for some reason.

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

However aggressive you feel comfortable being. Spending story points on ships gives you some bonus XP (100% of the bonus XP needed for the next story point for frigates; less up front for larger ships but with the balance returned on scrapping), so investing story points in ships is in some sense "free" and can speed up your character advancement, but on the other hand it does take a bit of time to earn "back" that story point even with full bonus XP so spending a story point on a ship now might mean that you don't have a story point to spend on e.g. evading a pirate fleet or getting a better payout for a shipping contract or picking up a blueprint/item from the historian a short time in the future.

[TK3600]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

Very aggressive, unless it is a ultra rare ship.

[Bigsky]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

Very aggressive, unless it is a ultra rare ship.

in that case?

[Juno]

I just salvage everything on my runs.
My fleet is dragging a bunch of logistic ships to afford it.
Well if its ultra rare ship, you probably want to have clear idea what you are going to S-mod.

That being said, most salvage is junk, and money stops being relevant by midgame.
@Alex we need some lategame money sink option please.

[Doctorhealsgood]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

How necessary is that S-Mod? If very then do so. If you end up not needing that ship anymore scuttle it for the 25% bonus exp for a "full refund"

[Aeson]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

Very aggressive, unless it is a ultra rare ship.

in that case?

Be certain it's an s-mod that you want on the 'final' build of that ship, because s-mods are highly inconvenient to swap out and rare ships can be hard to replace if you haven't acquired a blueprint or lack consistent access to ship production.

[Phenir]

On that note, how aggressive should I be S-modding ships?

Depends on the ship in question and your other story point usage. Early smods on frigates is a nice way to get some bonus exp and if you scrap them later, you get 100% total refund. Now, you always end up with 100% even on capitals but you're unlikely to scrap capitals and they don't give any initial bonus exp while frigates give 75% iiirc. If you find yourself using story points on other stuff that gives bonus exp, this is less of a reason to smod aggressively.
Logistic ship smods are always good investment, especially on the biggest ones, since you will likely be using them the entire playthrough. As soon as you get an atlas or prometheus, smodding their respective cargo hullmods is a good idea.
If you find you lose ships often, smodding is one of the ways to secure "almost always recoverable" for that ship (the other ways being bulkheads, hull restoration skill, or having an officer on board). Just having an smod on the ship works.
Of course, an smodded ship is also just better than one that isn't, which means you can take bigger fights. Bigger fights means more exp which means more story points for more smods.
Also if you really hate hyperspace storms (and other terrain CR damage like pulsars), smod solar shielding. Completely blocks storm damage if it hits that ship. Fully shielded fleet can just ignore storm damage and sit in blackholes.

[Aeson]

As soon as you get an atlas or prometheus, smodding their respective cargo hullmods is a good idea.

I disagree; Atlas and Prometheus have enough cargo and fuel capacity, respectively, that it's not really worth investing a story point into Expanded Cargo Holds and Auxiliary Fuel Tanks for them - it's pretty rare for any commodity to be both worth trading and available in quantities greater than about 2000 units, and missing out on a few hundred units of metal or whatever from combat/exploration loot is hardly the end of the world. I will also say that I tend to find the Prometheus overkill even for a large fleet; you don't usually need 3000+ fuel capacity on top of whatever your other ships can hold, and there's a lot of places where you can't even buy 3000 units of fuel across all markets.

If you're going to invest story points into logistics ships early on, I would say go for things like Augmented Engines, Insulated Engines, or Solar Shielding; otherwise, save the story points for your combat ships or for whatever other story-point options you might be interested in.

[Daynen]

S-mod the ships you want to keep and use through your career; the extra OP you get back from a couple S-mods can elevate your fleet to a completely different level.  I don't S-mod most frigates except for perhaps omens and monitors; once built out they make phenomenal picket ships that can waste a TON of the enemy's attention, missile ordnance and PPT while they sit on objective points and just refuse to die.  S-mod once you've got a build in mind; story points are probably the most valuable resource in the game and wasting one on the wrong mod/ship can waste a lot of your time.

As for logistics, I look for things that make them more cost-efficient to run; solar shielding is my favorite since it removes those bursts of supply usage from storms and coronas, making your logistics ships not only cheaper but more predictable to maintain, reducing the variance and easing your guesswork on how many supplies you need.  Insulated engines is nice since capital logistics are otherwise a massive neon sign saying "CHASE ME!" to anyone onscreen.  I'm tempted to try S-modding efficiency overhaul and solar shields to see just how cheap I can make my logistics but that seems better suited for late game where you're not really running from enemies as much.

Never really felt the need to S-mod augmented drives; I'm comfortable with 18 sustained burn and with my skill spread I only need ships to hit 8 burn on their own, which is only an issue if you've got a super slow capital ship with a D-mod to get it down to 5 burn.