Ostranauts – Salvaging Tips

Tips to Salvaging

All credit goes to Tumskunde!

So for when I go Salvaging, I run completely EVA. This means the first thing I get is an EVA suit and helmet, then spare O2 Bottle and at least 2 batteries.

I usually add a pressurised safety cabin later, but early on, I turn off all my life support as it just drains my ship batteries and I’m not out long enough to need to eat or drink.

Storage is an issue as I lose my backpack slot, but I just toss all my bags in a Smart Crate, it can hold 9 bags, I can carry 2 of them. Smaller items, like food/water/meds goes into a spare jumpsuit/cargo pants, which then go into a bag. I also grab a Super Handy as soon as I can afford one (~$4K) that lets me haul more items that don’t fit into my crates or bags.

• When I first get to a wreck, I do a sweep for pirates, so I will usually only take 1 crate with me with my breaching tools and a weapon.
• Those tools are varied, but eventually boil down to a Cutter/torch, screwdriver/drill, soldering iron if I don’t have a torch, crowbar, plus as many Work Lamps as I can find.
• You can turn the Work Lamps on and drop them to give light to an area while leaving your hands free.
• Once clear I head back for the rest of my Salvage kit and get to work.

My salvage kit always includes a sack or two of scrap parts, as it’s worthwhile to fix items to sell them.

Tip: Nav consoles are tricky, once you repair them, you may need to debug them if they start throwing errors or act screwy.

So as to what I grab:

• Furniture: Bar tops (not tables) are worth $6-8K each, you usually find 3-4 on the ships I’ve found them on. Sinks pick them up to access their water storage, I usually empty all the small water packs into a sink and drag that onto my ship instead. Bins of all types, you can access their inventory by picking them up, and you can always fill them with other kit, the grey ones can hold large items, like ship Batteries or tanks. Toilets and Fridges can be used for storage.
• Sundries: I grab Food/Meds/Alcohol as its small and you can get a decent sum if you find enough. Ossifex pens are $3k, but are bulky. Water is worth a fair bit if you can find a way to transport it. Flasks are cheap, but hold a lot of water, which is not.
• Engineering: 2 thrusters is almost the cost of a new license, Batteries aren’t really worth it for their size, but still worth ~$1K, good as backups though, same with both Airpumps and Heaters. Coolers are $3K. Gas Alarms are small, quick to fix and fit in small pockets/clothing, worth ~$300 Transponders, if you can uninstall a transponder without damaging it $13K. Antenna are 1-4K depending on type. CO2 scrubbers are big, but worth a decent amount. Hydra Intakes are gold. Reactors are a no brainer.
• Tools: The Weber and it’s battery, if you don’t already have spares, otherwise keep it and get a charger. All guns but the Rip, it’s worth less than the ammo it’s loaded with. The Katana is worth 5K, the rest of the blades ~$100.
• Scrap: As much as I can get, I usually have a pair of Komparts set aside, with a bunch of cargo pants to hold Motors/Displays/Motherboards. I usually don’t sell them until I start getting a huge amount of excess, as I’ve burned through stacks of parts fixing and refurbishing items.

Always spend a bit of time fixing big tickets before you sell them, they lose a tonne of value from being “Used” and it just takes a bit of time to set them back to full value.