Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Firstly, reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvage_tug

The high-level idea is an ORE or SoE ship with a specific bonus to salvage operations, acting as a more specialized ship for the "mini-profession" of salvaging NPC and player wrecks for their valuables.

This is an idea that popped into my head one the drive home from work, and I'll be the first to say that it's not fully-formed. I primarily want to get it written down where others can see it so I have motivation to refine it.

That's not to say that I think destroyers should be obviated like gas-harvesting battlecruisers, rather I see salvage as a viable way for newer players, especially in the highly violent areas of nullsec and w-space, to be able to make a decent amount of ISK without having to dedicate themselves to the roughly 90 days it takes to fly an AFK Ishtar.

Salvage tugs would be a destroyer-sized ship, with a bonus to the use of salvagers. The first thing that comes off my head is a role bonus to wreck difficulty and a skill bonus to salvager cycle time. The role bonus would, at lower skill levels, allow new players to salvage difficult wrecks without needing to dedicate too much training time to a niche skill, while players with higher skill levels would benefit from not needing salvage tackle rigs at all.

I can see both a T1 and a T2 ship existing, both with slot layouts similar to that of the Gallente Algos.

When it comes to special features, the T1 version could ape the Venture slightly and have a bonus to warp core strength paired with a materials bay limited to the stuff you get from salvaging wrecks. On a whim, perhaps make that materials bay impossible to cargo scans. In terms of actual cargo space, "just enough to fit 2 MTUs" sounds about right.

The T2 salvage tug could, similarly, echo the Prospect. Able to fit a covops cloaking device, but loses two turret hardpoints to accommodate that ability, limiting it to 4 salvagers. It receives a modest boost to materials bay capacity, but sacrifices scan-proofing for that additional capacity. Lastly, in place of the warp core strength bonus, it receives a flat bonus to salvager use range.

Both ships would have a very modest drone bay and bandwidth, the T1 with enough to field a single flight of lights with one in reserve while the T2 would have a single flight.

The T1 ship is probably best utilized as a post-skirmish cleanup crew - whether that skirmish was between a player and NPCs, player vs. player, or something else entirely is immaterial, the goal is to get in, grab what's nearest and leave.

The T2 ship is more along the lines of a ship designed to go behind enemy lines, or at least into areas where combat might happen at any moment, and quietly recover the vast majority of usable salvage while avoiding combat.

And with that - what have I missed or overlooked? Anything broken, poorly thought, or just plain bad?

Noctis seem to be a fine ship for straight up salvage ops. Heck, it's even designed for it :p

The noctis is a great ship for this - but as a BC/Industial hull - it is showing its age with a lot of newer stuff. Namely MTUs and such

Now figuring out away to split ore industrial into 2 skills - one for a Destoryer sized salvage ship and another for the updated and rebuilt noctis.

The destroyer could be the small person op ship that focuses on quick clean up jobs
While the noctis would be more of a fleet/gang ship for cleaning up large battles.

Cargo bays need looked at 2.5-7.5k m3 would feel fine. Other stats would be subject to the ships primary focus - small/agile . large/group

lol

The Venture was necessary because the mining-bonused frigates were repurposed for remote reps, leaving a gap for new miners.

Current destroyers function fine as salvage ships until you get to Noctis levels, especially with the introduction of MTUs (which I personally think were unnecessary, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). There is no need for yet another salvage-made-easy ship/mod/whatever.

This is called a Noctis.

1. As you said, you can tractor 8 wrecks at once with a Noctis, so this blows the MTU way out of the water. Although, when used properly, you don't need to tractor 8 wrecks at once. Just drop a MTU in your mission/anom, bookmark it, and come back later with a full salvage Noctis.
2. Yes, it is quite agile when fit properly.


That's completely untrue. Skill wise it takes a whopping three level 3 skills and four level 1 skills to fly, many of which new players start with. A new player is looking at less than a day of training to fly a Noctis. As far as price tag, 80mil is not that much. My neighbor who's been playing for a whole 3 months was making more than that a day at the end of his first week.

If you want the bonuses, use a Noctis. If you want to salvage cheaply, use a Cormorant. A dedicated salvage destroyer is pointless and unnecessary.

Thank you for making my point for me.
With the introduction of the MTU(a huge mistake) and nothing added to the Noctis it has one foot in the grave and the other on the slippery edge. If your salvage bonus-ed destroyer became a thing you essentially push the Noctis into a useless place.

I am not specifically against your salvaged based destroyer idea so much as I am against the continually pushing the Noctis even further into the ranks of irrelevant ships. If you want this destroyer then find a way to bonus the Noctis to keep it a viable and relevant ship, something that clearly keeps it at the top of the stack based on it's intended purpose and then include that in your idea.

Wondering why the measure of the usefulness of a ship always comes down to it's DPS capability?
I showed your proposal for the cov-ops capable T2 variant to several members of the low sec corp my son is in and they immediately started to discuss fits and tactics on how your ship could be used to gain advantage. So even if you think it would not be all that useful outside of it's intended purpose there are obviously devious and twisted minds in the game that can see an advantage to it and that makes it a major concern that we would need to address.

I'm sure there's a lot of devious uses that it could be used for. Being able to use it for devious, unintended things isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on if those uses are "broken". I'm sure some of those uses could be made less viable or completely impossible by adjusting PG/CPU.

As for the Noctis thing - I admit I have no good idea how to keep it a viable ship if salvage tugs were to be introduced. I'll think on it and maybe something will occur to me.