EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hey everyone, would having the scavenging skills help improve my ISK income as a combat pilot?
Also how many scavenger *turrets* should I use on a thrasher?

Thanks.

It is debatable whether it would actually improve your income. One resource new players often do not take into consideration is time. Yes salvaging would improve your income per mission, and that would be relevant if you were restricted on the number of missions you would take... but you're not. Nothing is "wasted" by leaving the wrecks/loot and moving onto a new one. Remember for completing missions you get bounties, rewards and loyalty points, whereas for cleaning up you only get loot. So you have to work out which is most profitable:

1) Spending 10 minutes doing a mission then spending 10 minutes looting and salvaging it, or
2) Spending 10 minutes doing a mission then spending 10 minutes doing another mission

It may be that some missions are worth looting and salvaging, but others are not. That only comes with experience really. But undoubtedly the best way to loot is to have a dedicated ship rather than tacking a salvager onto your combat ship, or even worse dropping guns to fit salvagers.

You make a good point, I see what you mean but the cash I'm taking in now is very little though it is consistent. I'm just looking for that little bit of extra income to help fund any ship equipment I need. I doubt I'll equip my thrasher with full salvaging equipment on missions, just the odd 1 or 2 salvagers.

You have 1 utility high slot on a Thrasher so you could just fit a salvager, yeah. Or it might be better to fit a tractor beam and loot rather than salvaging (looting is quicker). If you only loot/salvage while you kill, then you lose nothing, and gain a little bonus. But if you find yourself flying all around the mission area looting/salvaging everything then you're probably wasting time that is better spent doing another mission instead.

keep two ships, one to run missions and one to use as a salvager after the mission is done. all you have to do is bookmark one wreck in each room and then fly back to it after the mission is done. only really worth salvaging cruisers and above but yes it will dramatically boost your initial income.

One thing that salvaging can be good for as a new combat pilot is pvp scavenging. You're going to spend some time poking around dangerous space in some sort of travel fit ship setting up bookmarks for later, most likely. Sometimes you will find wrecked battleships or T2 ships lying around while you're in your travel fitted ship, because well, a combat fleet doesn't stop to salvage the bones of their dead, they don't fit the things when they're fighting. It might even be there because you helped blow it up. Nom those up, if you have a salvager it's like finding large bills on the street. If you fly drone ships, you might be able to spare one spot in your bay for a salvage drone for that purpose.