cool way to implement salvaging

posted on October 30th, 2011, 8:55 am

ok so i had this idea to implement salvaging.

heres the deal:

I think one headache the devs might be having in implementing salvaging is making left over debris from a ship something that will stick around after a ship is destroyed and making those debris havestable. so i think i have an idea to fix this.

when any ship is destroyed and the ship breaks up, the normal ship sections will disappear as it is now, but it will leave little crates of resources behind as debris. like if an intrepid where to be destroyed, it will leave behind little orange, blue and red crates, for tritanium, dilithium and supply respectively, with 10 units of each resource in each crate.

then a player just comes along with a typical miner, that puts a tractor beam on each crate and drags it back to the mining base.

i think this method of salvaging would be easier to implement as the devs might just have to create a new object/model for each crate, and on a ship being destroyed just spawn some of these crates.


only other thing the devs would need to do is just automate the salvaging process for miners, just to reduce clicking by the player. I think using this method will make implementing such a feature easier for the devs. 

might also lead to new strategies, like imagine being klingon, you destroy one of own ships to leave some crates behind, cloak your ships near the crate field, and wait for some unsuspecting enemy miners to come along hehehe 

so what y'all think?


P.S. poor devs, deys werking so hards for us, to make the fleety opsie so nice. we shoulds haves a hug a devs day 

posted on October 30th, 2011, 9:12 am

Pretty good idea. Somehow reminds me of the GLA, from Generals.

posted on October 30th, 2011, 11:35 am

I never missed salvaging from Fleet Ops. And for only 10-10 units of resources, it wouldn't worth the micro-management. Especially that in some cases the slow and defenseless miners would have to make big distances to salvage a minimal amount. It worth more just let them mining...

posted on October 30th, 2011, 12:35 pm

I never missed salvaging from Fleet Ops. And for only 10-10 units of resources, it wouldn't worth the micro-management. Especially that in some cases the slow and defenseless miners would have to make big distances to salvage a minimal amount. It worth more just let them mining...

each crate holds 10 resources. but who cares how much they hold, u say its not worth the micro so instead make each crate hold 30 or something. these are minor details that the devs will sort out to make it balanced. what is your opinion on the idea as a whole?

posted on October 30th, 2011, 2:22 pm

The trouble is, resources in general aren't really that limited. Plenty of moons etc, so would it really be worth it to have freighters going out salvaging, instead of simply mining a moon? You would need a map with very spartan resources in order to make it worth it.

I like the idea in general, I just think it only works in a very specific set of parameters. Anything else and it's not practical.

posted on October 30th, 2011, 2:46 pm

I think this is a good idea.

posted on October 30th, 2011, 4:41 pm

If you make the crates hold some supply  as well it would be well worth it for some. I really like this idea!!
Veteran ships could give more supplies back

posted on October 30th, 2011, 4:55 pm

If you want it make to worth the risk of ending out defenseless and slow miners to salvage, while they could mine at home peacefully and fast, you would need to put far more resources into the crates than that the ships cost.
And if a ship cost less resources than it spawns when it is destroyed, why don't just build those ships and then destroy them and salvage them within your base? Who needs resource moons then?

posted on October 30th, 2011, 5:15 pm

I think if salvaging ships was an ability inserted into fleetops, then a new way of salaging would be implemented.  I dont think that you would use a standard miner to collect resources from a ship wreck.  I would believe, and suggest, some sort of new class of ship would be designed, a faster miner of sorts, would collect resource from the wreck.  Or possible such a ship, would instead collect the entire ship, and take it back to a yard, for it to be processed for resources.

posted on October 30th, 2011, 5:46 pm

Heres an idea: If all ships when destroyed left behind debris, it may cause the game to be slow, HOWEVER, what if during battle there is a certain % like lets say 40-50% that ships would leave behind debris when destroyed. Then you could make a certain type of salvage ship to tractor beam ships back and forth to your shipyard to give dil, trilith, and supplies. Make a big incentive to protect the debris field. Ships with rank or veteran status leave more resources when tractor beamed onto shipyards

posted on October 30th, 2011, 6:40 pm

I always prefered the old Armada 1 & 2 system of ships losing their crew quickly, after that, you could claim an enemy ship or get your own back.

However, IMO, I think that when a ship is destroyed, however much supply is used can only be regained by salvaging, thus, the majority of the materials will be 60% the origonal supply price. the other 40% can be regained over time

posted on October 30th, 2011, 8:20 pm

Another way to help negate any performance issues, and add to the strategy behind salvaging, would be if the debris, and the amount of resources dissipation over time, as far as volume of resources, and visual display of debris.  However, in addition to that, the actual debris could spread out over space.... and then some of it could be trapped in asteroid fields, or be sucked into wormholes and such....

posted on November 7th, 2011, 5:37 pm

Also as well as a small resource benefit, what if there was a chance by harvesting a ship of a different race there was a slim chance of getting an ability or weapon or whatever. They then could be stored in a dry dock and bolted to ships that were dock to it, kind of mixed tech but not so specific e.g. if a defient class was destroyed then harvested the "critical shot" ability could be retrofitted to an exsisting b'rel (not added to any future ships of that class being built). Obviously a Dom V-13 Battleship using an upgraded klingon engine from a K'vort wouldn't get the same increased speed as if it got the engine from a ship the same class/size such as a Negh'var.

posted on November 7th, 2011, 10:55 pm

If you want it make to worth the risk of ending out defenseless and slow miners to salvage, while they could mine at home peacefully and fast, you would need to put far more resources into the crates than that the ships cost.
And if a ship cost less resources than it spawns when it is destroyed, why don't just build those ships and then destroy them and salvage them within your base? Who needs resource moons then?

What if all of your moons already have 3 miners? I think itd be worthwhile, mostly because it usually wouldn't be just one ship destroyed, but rather a number. This would mostly be used to clean up those large scale battles and gain an advantage over your opponent. I think I read an idea on another post about having faster 'salvage' miners that automatically process the materials and send a certain percentage of the ship cost right to your resources, with the percent being able to increase through research. Either that or setting up a portable mining facility that could form into a ship so it could move or something like that.