Oolite Bulletins

Cheers D.

The maths ATM is paying 4,300 C as a base price for salvaging an Annaconda and at the other end of the scale about 300 C for a sidewinder. I may up this a bit, but it is really for 5 minutes work taking the ship to the Dredger. This is what you are paid rather than the value of the ship. The ship is a barely functional wreak and will require many thousands of Credits spending on and hundreds of hours work aboard the Dredger to fix it up for sale. A brand new Annaconda may fetch 650,000 C but you ain't bringing in a showroom fresh model, its a shot up wreak. After being patched up the Dredger may sell it on for 400,000 C or so, but there've had to lay out at least 100,000 C in parts and probabley a similar amount in Labour. Your Finder's Fee is about 10% of the resale price.

LittleBear wrote:

Your Finder's Fee is about 10% of the resale price.

I think this is about right. As LB says, you can't salvage the ship yourself, you can't repair it yourself – you have to rely on the dredger providing all the docking, refit and repair facilities, plus time and expertise, to turn the salvaged ship into something that *might* fetch somewhere near the full price but will more likely end up alongside the rusties in the bargain basement.

To ensure a bit of variety, and increase the anticipation as the salvaged ship nears the dredger, you could maybe add on a random bonus factor, based on tonnage, as the player's share of any remaining cargo on board. The chance of making a lucky strike ("Get in! That sucker was carrying 80 tons of computers, and 300 kilos of platinum!" – could be anywhere up to, say, 15,000 Cr as a 50-50 split for a very expensive cargo) would, I think, make most players keen salvagers when the opportunity arose. As well as getting to see the game universe functioning intelligently around you, of course!

There does seem to be a disparity between selling your own ship for hundreds of thousands of credits, and getting 2 or 3 thousand for selling someone else's ship.

This probably has to do with the policy that a pilot that abandons a ship will get almost a new ship for nothing. He only will suffer the loss of his cargo. Intergalactic property is dealt different with than earthly or nautic property. When you eject a ship the company that sells the escape pods becomes owner of the ship. After salvaging and repairing he can sell the ship and from the profit he can finance a new ship for the pilot that ejected. The salvager only gets a small fee for the trouble.

Be realistic, you cant have it both ways: AND get a new ship when using an escape pod, AND getting complete ownership of a salvaged ship.

LittleBear wrote:

The maths ATM is paying 4,300 C as a base price for salvaging an Annaconda...

After being patched up the Dredger may sell it on for 400,000 C or so, but there've had to lay out at least 100,000 C in parts and probabley a similar amount in Labour. Your Finder's Fee is about 10% of the resale price.

I agree with much of your argument LittleBear, but 4,300Cr is not 10% of 400,000Cr - it's more like 1%.

Eric Walch wrote:

This probably has to do with the policy that a pilot that abandons a ship will get almost a new ship for nothing. He only will suffer the loss of his cargo. Intergalactic property is dealt different with than earthly or nautic property. When you eject a ship the company that sells the escape pods becomes owner of the ship. After salvaging and repairing he can sell the ship and from the profit he can finance a new ship for the pilot that ejected. The salvager only gets a small fee for the trouble.

I can't disagree with you here, Eric - a commander should not get the complete value of a salvaged ship. But let's remember that it is in the financial interests of the insurance/escape pod company to recover the abandoned ship. I'm not sure that many bounty hunters are going to bother to salvage a ship when the reward will be little more than he could get by blowing it apart and scooping the cargo.

It's unrealistic for bounty hunters to expect six-figure rewards for salvaging ships, but it would be equally unrealistic for insurance companies to offer three-figure sums. The reward has to be a worthwhile alternative to destroying the ship.

If you blow up an inert Python, say, you might be lucky and get maybe a dozen cargo cannisters out of the thing. Even if you're exceptionally lucky, and get a bunch of gemstones or precious metals, you'll be unlikely to scoop up much more than 1,000 credits' worth, assuming you've got the cargo space to hold it all. Taking 2000 Cr bounty plus (maybe) a 50% share of the entire cargo (not just what survives the explosion) for a Python would make a lot more sense.

On balance I think a reward of 1% would be reasonable, It's got to be worth more salvaging, rather than just destroying the ship and scooping the cargo, but also enough to make it worth taking the time to do the salvage work, particularly if there are bandits out there who would want to take it from you. Perhaps if randomly spawning bandits is doable, then an additional bonus could be paid for safe delivery. If it's a straight forward delivery with no defending required then just the standard 1% payment.

Mmmm we're onto the nitty subject of game balace here aren't we?

Reward can be based against any number of the following factors.

Frequency of opportunity.
Difficulty of action.
Need for specialist equipment to carry out action and the disadvantage that puts on the pilot.
Cost of the said specialist equipment.
Cost of item being reclaimed.
Cost of the cargo being reclamed.


Firstly a little debunking, we've all had our ships shot to hell, have they been worth 3000 creds when we went to part exchange them? No. Have we had to make repairs (yes) how much have these cost? couple of grand. So the shot to shit argument doesn't really hold water.

Secondly auto repair. To get a pilot to eject the ship has to be a nats whisker away from exploding. The pilot ejects the auto repair nanites got to work, within 10 seconds the ship isn't venting plasma any more. So it could be said that auto repair can fix a good chunk of the ships systems.

thirdly game balance wise you can't have a rookie with a drone bagging themselves an anaconda and expect to get 100% resale for it. It just blows all the game balance rules out the window.

So, how do you handle salvage? Well how is salvage handled in the real world? http://www.southwindssailing.com/articl ... e0106.html

so what can we gleen from this? Criminals would have difficulty getting salvage (mainly because they would steal the craft themselves) Any maritime court would accuse them of killing the crew and bang go the salvage rights (Marie Celeste) . Other than that 1/3 of the value of the helped vessal and the cargo.

OK so that's a base maximum. on a good old cobra3 of 50,000 creds. This is way too much for simply aiming a drone at a stationary object.

I would say a fair amount of cash would be 10% of the base rusty value and a third (rounding down) of all the cargo, 5% for illegal ships taking into account the extra paper work (and 1/3 of all the LEGAL cargo). So cobra3 wise a legal would be worth 15000 and an illegal would be worth 7,500

Sure, you're not going to get rich off salvage but it makes it a nice little occassional bonus.

Other problems? Hell yeah! The drone could screw up, pirates see a space fairing pinyata and decide to crack it open. Police mistake it for a still functioning hostile. When your talking 15 grand then expect oolite to make you work for it.

What do you think?

Disembodied wrote:

If you blow up an inert Python, say, you might be lucky and get maybe a dozen cargo cannisters out of the thing. Even if you're exceptionally lucky, and get a bunch of gemstones or precious metals, you'll be unlikely to scoop up much more than 1,000 credits' worth, assuming you've got the cargo space to hold it all. Taking 2000 Cr bounty plus (maybe) a 50% share of the entire cargo (not just what survives the explosion) for a Python would make a lot more sense.

Agreed, providing that 2000Cr + 50% cargo value is worth more than:

• spending money on launching a salvage drone
• spending time escorting the abandoned ship to the dredger
• taking on bandits who pose a risk to the salvage ship and the possible damage to the valuable equipment on your own ship
• the risky dock with a dredger (the damn things always start to change course whenever I try to enter them)

IMHO, I think ClymAngus is closer to the mark with his salvage valuations. I suppose we'll find out exactly how well it all works when we actually try these drones out....

I think you're right, playtesting it is the only reliable way. However I'm not sure if there's a way to determine whether or not a ship was legal before it became a hulk, though, as hulks have no legal status.

If you're going to get 15,000Cr (or even 7,000Cr) for a Cobra III, though, then the drone is probably going to have to be reasonably expensive – say, 1,000Cr. A reasonable investment for those with a bit of cash to hand, but probably too much for the out-and-out rookie to shell out on a get-rich-quick scheme.

ClymAngus wrote:

thirdly game balance wise you can't have a rookie with a drone bagging themselves an anaconda and expect to get 100% resale for it. It just blows all the game balance rules out the window.

I just played it with pirates added on the flight path. OK, you know there are pirates on the way, so you already go ahead of your ship to kill them in advance. But for a rookie this will be to heavy. This brings the balance that only skilled pilots can start salvaging.

Ooops, sorry JB, dam my maths it is 1%.

On the other hand I'm trying to do something that doesn't unbalance the game too much. If you trade furs / computers you make about 1000 C per trip. All a salvage missile requires you to do is fire (and forget) it at the target. So any Salvage money is bonus money. Pack 4 Drones on your pylons and that's an extra 20K a trip in salvage. Plus what you make on the trade run / piracy / bounty hunting / hits / missions.

I'm self employed in RL and , my profit margin is 30%. Then I have to pay VAT at 17.5% income tax at 40% of the remainder and Class 4 NI at 7.5%. So in RL for every £1 I am paid about 10p of it ends up in my pocket! So 10% might be realistic, but would it make the game more fun to get 40,000 C for salvaging an Anaconda. If so what would be the point of trading or doing missions?

So is (after fixing up de-trumbleing etc) 1% unreasonable? I don't really want to try to make it realistic, but to add GamePlay. Would people want 40,000 C to be awarded for fireing a missile? The code is simple to play about with ATM the base price is calculated as :-
An big ship like an anaconda has a mass value of 429553 , a sidewinder 26737, hence the anaconda weighing in at 4,300 C (base price). The cargo is extra and a random element is thrown in, but what to people think is Gameplay wise a fair price to add? At 1% the payment for Salvaging is about 10 times the payment for killing the ship, so if I make it too much I do think the game will become too easy. But what does the Commoonity think?

I think partly it will depend on how often players come across, or can induce, a pilotless ship. If you can find one every other trip then the rewards should be towards the lower end of the scale. If it's something that only happens every tenth system or so, then there should be a bit more of a bonanza to it.

There could always be other restrictions built in: maybe the player should have to have a Clean rating to claim salvage, to discourage piracy. Or (and?) maybe players have to shell out a big one-off fee (10,000Cr? 50,000Cr?) to buy a salvager's licence before they're able to buy any drones. The first X ships you salvage go towards paying off the initial investment, after which it's all gravy. Any thoughts?

Now I'm not sure. Maybe we should just go with Eric and LittleBear's numbers and see how the game plays out.

I fly as a bounty hunter going after fugitives, so I'm unlikely to ever salvage an Anaconda. But if grabbing an abandoned Python with 20 or 30 tonnes of cargo puts 4 or 5 thousand credits into my account, I won't complain...

All the time I've been playing, I've only run into two ghost ships. So this does not seem like a viable job. I can't justify the pylon space to hold a mostly useless salvage missle... unless I'm missing something? Is there some reliable way to force an eject? Otherwise I will never carry one of these things. I need the pylons for missles, bombs, fuel, etc. Things I use often and need.

There isn't a totally reliable way to force an eject. Apart from anything else, not all ships carry an escape pod. But I've seen plenty of pilots eject when their ship is belching plasma out the back and obviously seconds away from explosion. The trick would be to keep a close eye on the target's status on screen and stop firing when it changes from e.g. "Python: Offender" to just "Python", indicating that its crew have ejected and the ship now is unoccupied. Then scoop the pod, tidy up any other details in the area, launch the drone, and wait for the dredger.

It's not something I've been consciously trying to do, so it's not an everyday occurrence, but with a bit of practice I'm sure I could force it to happen a bit more often. How often would be a big factor in deciding how much money should be awarded.