How to 'tow' or salvage abandoned ships, Noob question....

[Rafe]

As titled, which Oxp gives the option to tow and salvage abandoned ships, I noticed the option in one of the Oxp info lists and cannot remember which one

Newbie question I know but oolite has so many extras its hard to remember half of em!!

[Svengali]

Deep Space Dredgers should give you what you want...

And welcome onboard .-)

[Rafe]

Thx for the swift reply Svengali, Dredgers2.4.2.zip comin down now.

I must also say that having now installed 54 oxp's the game is looking close to a retail quality release though I'm lucky enough to have a rather nice 3.6Ghz dual cpu and 8series Gpu

Running pretty solid on my Win7x64 os as well

[Estwing]

I like this OXP alot though it would be nice if the salvage award reflected the value of the ship more. It would of course upset the balance of the game to award very large amounts but when I get awarded around 1200Cr for a Super Cobra and then another time 14000Cr for a Python Class Cruiser it seems a little random.
Also, I stumbled across a derelict GRS Armadillo which you would think would be worth a bit but the award was around 800Cr.
Is there a damage value applied to the ship that effects the salvage value or is the award just a random figure?

[LittleBear]

It calcualtes the value by reference to the ship's mass which (I think) in turn relates to the volume of the ships model. A random tweak is added to + or - from this base figure to reflect how beat up the ship is and whether any cargo survived. There is therefore logic to the amount awarded, but it means a bigger ship (like a python say) gives more salvage value as a rule of thumb than a smaller but more technologicaly advanced ship like a Vampire or a Super Cobra, even though a new python costs less to buy than a Super Cobra or Vampire. You could justify this though by the fact that the Dredger is basically a scrap yard and is paying really for the tonnage of metal deleivered. All those fancy ship systems that made the Vampire an expensive ship have been smashed to bits so the Vampire's scrap value is less than a python. Due to the state of the ships brought in there all just scrap metal now! Once a ferrari has been squashed into a cube in the scap yard, it ain't worth no more than a ford escort squashed into a cube!

[DaddyHoggy]

It calcualtes the value by reference to the ship's mass which (I think) in turn relates to the volume of the ships model. A random tweak is added to + or - from this base figure to reflect how beat up the ship is and whether any cargo survived. There is therefore logic to the amount awarded, but it means a bigger ship (like a python say) gives more salvage value as a rule of thumb than a smaller but more technologicaly advanced ship like a Vampire or a Super Cobra, even though a new python costs less to buy than a Super Cobra or Vampire. You could justify this though by the fact that the Dredger is basically a scrap yard and is paying really for the tonnage of metal deleivered. All those fancy ship systems that made the Vampire an expensive ship have been smashed to bits so the Vampire's scrap value is less than a python. Due to the state of the ships brought in there all just scrap metal now! Once a ferrari has been squashed into a cube in the scap yard, it ain't worth no more than a ford escort squashed into a cube!

In fact a cubed Ferrari is mostly plastic, fibre glass and carbon fibre, whereas the the Ford Focus is mostly steel - therefore, once scrap (i.e. no salvageable parts) the Focus is worth more. Think of it as these companies that buy your gold, they don't care it's a 7th Century hand made, torc bracelet, they care its 14kt and weighs 120g (it may be worth £1,000,000 to a museum, but to the scrap dealer it's worth about £1,000)

[JensAyton]

It calcualtes the value by reference to the ship's mass which (I think) in turn relates to the volume of the ships model.

You’d think, but actually the “volume” calculated is roughly proportional to the surface area of the ship. There’s no easy fix, because Oolite models aren’t always manifolds, i.e. they don’t necessarily have a distinct inside and outside, and therefore don’t always have a strictly-defined volume.

[DaddyHoggy]

It calcualtes the value by reference to the ship's mass which (I think) in turn relates to the volume of the ships model.

You’d think, but actually the “volume” calculated is roughly proportional to the surface area of the ship. There’s no easy fix, because Oolite models aren’t always manifolds, i.e. they don’t necessarily have a distinct inside and outside, and therefore don’t always have a strictly-defined volume.

Right, so I need to make a very small ship, but constructed using a fractal pattern surface...