EVE General Discussion

Right now we have the Noctis as the de facto salvage ship. It is so popular of a ship that it has it's own skill dedicated to it (ORE Industrial, which applies to no other ship that I'm aware of). The Noctis is the way to clear out dozens of wrecks out to 80km, all while sitting comfortably in one spot, raking in the goodies.

And now salvage drones are no longer just an April Fool's prank or an urban legend. It looks like they're happening for real this time. I can't wait.

But what does this mean for the future of the Noctis? Will this niche ship become completely obsolete? Will the salvage drones skill and the ORE industrial skill end up switching places?

Now I know what people are going to say - "Have CCP simply give Noctis a drone bay and let it use salvage drones itself to be an even better salvagver!" Good in theory, but here's the reality: Adding a drone bay to the Noctis will simply encourage people to load it with combat drones and turn it into a low-grade combat ship for loot farming. (Heck knows, that's what I would do with it - seems rather obvious). So we can rule that out.

"But at max skill the Noctis can tractor beam from 80km, you can't beat that range!" - and, of course, at max skill a player's drones can also reach 80km range (coincidence?) ... and if they don't have max skill then they can just slap in a range extender. Again, the drones win the contest.

Now for someone like me, who's been flying Myrmidons almost exclusively for a long time now, I can say with confidence that I can spare the 25m3 of drone bay space to fit some salvage drones if it means never having to (go back for/have a flunky with) a Noctis to do the clean up.

I'm sure that CCP has some plan up it's sleeve to keep the Noctis useful (right?) and maybe even expand that whole Ore Industrial skill to apply to more than just one frikkin' ship in the game (right?) and that salvage drones won't be the alpha & omega solution to all salvaging problems (right?). I just wish they'd share that plan with me.

Meh. The drones will simply be an option for ships that have the room for them and dont have a utility high slot for a salvager.

The drones wont replace or make the noctis obsolete. It wont happen.

Dont worry so much about it. The noctis will still be a viable salvaging ship

Actually its 96km max range with t2 tractors and drones don't loot wrecks, only salvage them. Plus travel time for salvage drones as im sure they dont have mwd like combat drones, so they scoot that 80km at 900m/s whereas you tractor at 2.4k m/s, plus they have a much much lower access chance than t1 or t2 salvagers so it takes longer to salvage. Noctis is still the de facto standard salvage ship.

When I use a noctis it is to salvage and loot.

Salvage drones will be able to salvage only.

I can see them being used on a ship that doesn't rely on drones for DPS to add a little bit of extra ISK per hour from the salvaged things. But, you'll have to balance that out with the DPS you'll be losing from not having drones out.

For a player with low drone skills running salvage drones will probably be a good idea.

For a player with lots of drone skills it'll probably be more worthwhile to have DPS drones out and keep doing what they are currently doing.

How about tractor drones? They pull all the wrecks to you.

Until they make tractor drones (briefly imagines John Deere green and yellow drones, chuckles) the Noctis will still be king. It will really only help mission blitzers who don't pick up loot. But will the little guys salvage fast enough even for them is the question.

I would assume that the drones don't benefit from salvage tackles and that their access chance is low. Which means you'll either have to focus the flight on one target at a time, or spend a lot of time spreading them out, waiting for them to access.

Noctis will be just fine.

i'll be packing a set of these in to my orca instead of the logi drones.

between the tractor beam, shield resistance link, and mining cycle time link, these drones will be perfect.

drones salvage the wrecks, tractor in the cans of loot, easy isk while mining. (as if making isk while mining needed to be made easier)

another thought, most newer players salvage in destroyers, now there are some drone based destroyers... oh boy.

I was expecting something...but this was better. needs theme song playing in background. +1

Salvage drones! Cosmos plexes approve of this, the loot is meh anyway. But, in some plexes the salvage can be handy for rig builders.

How do those drones compare to salvagers II?