Ships & Modules

I'm not sure of the exact math, but yes using better salvagers will increase your speed and/or chance of salvage.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Salvaging_101#How_does_salvaging_work.3F

I believe that salvaging T2 hulls with drones is technically possible but, unless you are extremely lucky, it will take a very long time. Higher skills will improve your chance but you are probably better off skipping the advanced wrecks unless you have a hull mount salvager. As far as I have been able to determine, salvaging skill does not help chances of success for drones - only salvage drone skill where you get 2% improvement per level.

I have the most luck salvaging T2 rogue drone frigates with drones, rarely do they work well with other factions.

Yeah you should have been able to salvage it with drones, but you would have only had like a 2% chance each cycle, so it would have taken a long time. Better bet would be with hull mounted salvager as they are much more efficient. I believe with those skills you should be able to salvage anything in the game (except maybe advanced sleeper bs) with a hull mounted salvager, and everything up to sleepers with your drones (and possible some basic sleeper wrecks as well).

Here's a guide that includes the actual numbers https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Salvaging_%28Guide%29

With your skills and a -10% base modifier from the wreck salvaging drones couldn't do the job ever. A salvager I would have a 10% chance to access the wreck per cycle so would access it, on average, in 10 cycles (1 minute 40 seconds of salvaging). Raising your salvage drone operation skill level to 4 would give a 1% chance of salvaging with drones per drone per cycle and would access the wreck in an average of 3 minutes 20 seconds or so.

I worked this up some time ago but the math hasn't really changed. It automagically takes into account a salvager II when you hit salvaging 5.

However, that's all assuming a -10% access modifier for elite frigates -- and if I recall correctly, that's not right. It's only 0%. As such, your drones should have been able to do it (eventually). On average it should only take 11 cycles but since we're talking independent events the upper limit is mathematically infinite.

There's a weird paradox here too. Except in a very narrow set of circumstances, salvage drones will open wrecks faster than ship-mounted salvagers if they can open them at all. Because fitted salvagers and drones have the same cycle time but you end up with 5 drones and usually only 1 salvager the time to salvage for drones usually comes out ahead (because they get five times as many rolls as the ship-mounted salvager). The trade-off is that a fitted salvager (I or II) can access wrecks the drones simply can't.

I could be wrong but if I remember correctly faction wrecks cannot be salvaged with a T1 salvager. My guess is it's because salvage drones are T1. I remember when living in drone space pilots always yelling for a T2 salvager whenever a sentient was killed.

A minimum of Salvage Drone Op lvl 4 should get you faction wrecks salvaged. Sleepers not so much.

Disclaimer: The following may be outdated info from several patches ago, I can't verify this ATM:

There used to be a way to tell if your skill is sufficient. Check your logs while the drones are at work. If there is no entry in the log whatsoever, your skill is too low. If you get at least a failed notification every couple seconds it should complete eventually, might take ten minutes or more in extreme cases. Drones are really no expert salvagers. :o)