Missions & Complexes

As far as I know it isn't worth it.

There isn't really a "once and for all" answer. It depends on a large number of factors, including (but not limited to):

• Your salvaging skills
• Your combat skills
• Your Social skills
• Your market skills
• Your reprocessing skills and corp standing
• How much you can get for the NPC corp's LP
• Your available mission ships
• Which missions you accept
• Your skill/tolerance for market games

There are way, way too many variables to figure this out "once and for all". Hell, it even shifts depending on the price of salvage.

Best idea: try it out. Run missions like mad for ten hours. Work out an hourly rate. Run missions and salvage for ten hours. Work out another hourly rate. Compare. Try to identify critical factors. You might find that, I don't know, salvaging is worthwhile for missions where you get armor plates, and worthwhile on all missions if tripped power circuits are above a certain value. You just have to test it out; there's no magic answer.

We do know, however, that the fast you can complete missions the less worthwhile it is to salvage -- especially if you have a half-decent LP conversion rate. Whether you're in that position is something only you can determine.

1. Define "worth it"
2. If you live and breathe grinding missions and making lousy isk from mission rewards and bounties as fast as possible, nothing but trolling the cheat pages, killing, and running back to an agent matter.

There's nothing else to say. How fast you go beyond that depends on what you consider fun, whether the loot and salvage is worth it to you, and whether you buy the elitist line of crap that gets dished out daily here.

I salvage all L4's and L3's; I sell the valuable loot on the market, keep all salvage material to build and sell T1 rigs, and use many of the non-valuable loot to help with my invention success rates. To me, personally, it's very worth it. I make millions doing so, and couldn't really give a flying you-know-what about getting to the next mission in 30 seconds versus four minutes.

I really don't understand why this keeps getting asked. If you guys are so intent to leave behind the ISK on your L4's, message me in-game and I'll clean it up for you. No charge.

If all you want to min/max your ISK/hour == Blitzing (with market research and sometimes manufacturing)

If that's not the case, do what you like.

In general, it is worth salvaging in the following circumstances:

1) You are flying a Marauder and are salvaging as you go. (Generally, only the large wrecks.)
2) You have low DPS, and as a result you can make more or equal ISK/hour through salvage.
3) You have medium DPS, and only salvage the more lucrative missions (Angel Extravaganza, etc.)
4) You use an alt to salvage while you are missioning.

If you are flying a high DPS ship, it is generally not worth salvaging (except on an alt). This is especially true if you can get a good LP conversion rate (1000+ ISK/LP).

If you are going to salvage and are not flying a Marauder, do it in a Noctis. It is probably never worth salvaging in a destroyer.

I would have to say YES, it is sort of fun to do it. It's a bit like treasure hunting.
Missions are a bit redundant if you do them often, so adding another profitable game play is enjoyable.

I have a dedicated Maxed out Noctis pilot that is part of my 4 toon fleet, he tags along and loots/salvages all missions. Here is my game play and profit examples.


I run 4 missions at a time (each toon gets one from the same agent) and the salvager averages around 60m ISK in salvage/loot for all four combined. Sometimes it's more, but rarely less. I takes about an hour to do all 4 missions if they are spread out. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have an alt. If I only play two toons, I don't salvage, just loot with the cargo holds as I kill NPC's.

For a few specific missions (eg: Gone Beserk) it is. And ofc missions with empire faction rats, since you're collecting the tags anyway.

Generally, the faster you can do a mission, the more efficient it is to just do another than salvage. So there's no definite answer; missions that are obviously worth salvaging for a 2M SP pilot flying a drake with meta 3 launchers are blitz-fodder for a 50MP SP guy in a Mach.

To answer this question for your mission ship, mission speed, LP/ISK rate and rat type you need this things:

- a stop watch
- a calculator
- excel(or other calculation software)
- a bit of time to analyse how much the loot/salvage is worth and how much time you spend to collect it

Now you run missions, take the times with and without salvage/loot and break it down to ISK\h. Then you have your final answer for this question for your ship, play style and LP offers.

If you have a salvage Alt it is almost always worth it to salvage, if you stop between missions and grab a salvage boat, just know which missions salvage into good value.
For my salvage alt, I just fly in, release a pack of salvager drones, get them working, then lock wrecks and tractor them in. I then go back to the combat pilot window and carry on killing stuff in the next room/next mission, rinse and repeat as needed.

Drone missions have no loot other than the occasional Drone AI (which is worthless afaik), only salvage, so are rarely worth the effort.
Guristas missions CAN be worth it, but the loot items tend to be lower value compared to other rat types
Angels, Blood and Serpentis missions tend to have lots of valuable items and good salvage so are in most cases, worth the effort. However, some specific missions only have 3-4 BS rats so tend to not be worth the time.
Gone Berserk against EOM is ALWAYS worth the time ALWAYS !!!


Missions against Mercenaries are a bit odd. They tend to pay rather well even with low BS numbers.

As a rule of thumb, the more Battleships you killed in the mission, the better the loot/salvage value will be.

TL:DR If you do your own salvage, make the decision based on the type of Rat and the number battleships you killed int he mission. If you run a Salvager Alt, its almost always worth it.
Drone missions are almost never worth the effort.