Star Citizen features a range of gameplay features from space and aerial combat to mining. With update 3.18 the development team are introducing a new gameplay loop in the form of salvaging. This new feature in Star Citizen will allow players to scrape ship hulls and repurpose or resell the material.
The addition of Persistent Entity Streaming in 3.18 really adds to the effectiveness of this feature as players can salvage ships that may have been in the universe for weeks.
This guide will help players better understand how to salvage, the best locations and other gameplay loops that are accessible through salvaging.
Best Ships
The Aegis Reclaimer is currently the main ship in the game used for salvaging. This is a sub-capital ship that requires multi-crew gameplay to be most effective, this is due to it having two separate salvage operators that don't directly pilot the ship.
The cargo storage on the Reclaimer is huge allowing for a team to head out in to the verse and stay salvaging for long period of time to maximize profits. The storage area will need an additional crew member to move the salvaged material into the hold for new material to be claimed.
When considering all roles (related to salvaging) the Reclaimer requires 4 crew to work effectively. This doesn't include the turret operators that may be needed to fend off any enemies trying to steal the precious cargo.
The Drake Vulture is a new ship in update 3.18 and allows players to partake in salvage alone. This smaller ship allows the pilot to directly salvage materials from the pilot seat. However, to quickly salvage lots of material players may want a friend to manage the cargo in the rear of the ship.
How to Salvage
To begin, the player must approach a ship and, similar to mining, enter the salvage mode or take control of the salvage operator seat. This will bring up a new HUD for players to view while using the salvage modules. As mentioned before, in the Reclaimer there are dedicated positions for players to use the salvaging modules.These are separate from the pilot meaning players will need to communicate with each other to reclaim every part of a ship hull.
Begin scraping the hull of the ship, and it will start transferring material to the dedicated cargo hold. This is where another player will need to move the boxes from the machines into the hold itself.
The multi tool can also be used to salvage ships at a much-reduced rate. However, this can then be redistributed to repair the players own ship or friendlies who may have taken damage in battle. A new attachment has been added in 3.18, allowing players to change out their multi-tool item making it increasingly more versatile.
Storing Salvage
Players will have to manually remove the materials from the machine and place it into the hold using the new storage refactor mechanics. This will automatically place the boxes into a grid structure making it extremely easy to store the salvage efficiently. This is possible to do alone in both ships, but multi-crew gameplay makes it far easier as a single player operating this huge ship would be ineffective and slow.
In the Vulture, the storage area is much smaller and close to the cockpit making it easier for a solo player to do alone.
Best Locations
As this process is reliant on other players ships and NPCs there isn't necessarily a "best" place to salvage ships, however, its recommended that players stick to high traffic areas where players may accidently crash leaving their ship for salvage.
The ports above the main city locations are great for this as lots of players travel here and are likely to crash or shot down by the turrets and security if they have a crime stat. Astroid belts is also a hotspot for crashed ships making Yela a great farming spot for those looking to enter this gameplay loop.
Finally, locations where combat is a commonality is also a great idea but also slightly risky as players may confuse the salvage ships as a hostile or an easy kill for those trying to grief the server. Having a friend in a fighter ship can help to fend off enemies or distract other ships
Crafting
Crafting is a new feature arriving with the salving gameplay and ships. Players can use the salvage gained from other ships to craft items, possibly saving time by not having to return to a port or outpost to restock.
Currently, the only item players can craft is a Multi-tool, but this is an awesome first implementation and only has the community excited for future features with crafting. It is a little expensive when considering how much salvage it costs to create the tool, however, players can determine whether it's a useful feature as they play.
Star Citizen is available on PC.