luckiest salvage ever

A home for tales of personal killcounts and engagements between vast armadas, as well as the odd recounting of that time you saw an alien capship taking out a mining base while trying to parallel park.
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peter
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luckiest salvage ever

Post by peter »

I was just leaving a Commerce Center in my plowshare, with a hold full of construction cargo en route to a Frozen Ammonia planet. Some capships got in a fight nearby, so I checked my scanners to see if any good cargo was dropped.

Bingo, automated factory. I dumped about 1M$ in cargo and hit the overdrive. I successfully tractored in the autofac, which I went and sold for 33M$.

Now I have enough cash to trade autofacs and AI cores, so I'm all set now. I might get a mule and do some high-margin trading of low-density cargo from gas mines and oceanic planets. It might even be more manoeverable than a fully laden (> 3000% mass) plowshare. And be a lot less vulnerable to pirates...


I still haven't managed to disable and capture any fighters. Usually when I'm under attack I don't have time to leave anyone alive. Any lone ships that I could toy with are usually pirates, and get torn to shreds by all the other ships in the system. If I'm facing a bunch of enemies, I need to kill quickly. Then I use all my guns at once, which shreds a hyena or plowshare in one or two volleys. Anything bigger is usually shooting back enough that I can't mess around with my Arc Device very much, even if it's on its own.

Still rockin' the pacifier, with a Shield Breaker and Hephaestus-mini. I traded in the pugilists for microdrivers, mainly for range (~4500m instead of ~2300m), since my big guns have that range. My rapid-fire microwave bean has good range, 11km, but it's not very powerful. Cluster missiles are fun. Adv Torpedoes would be too easy. Where's the fun in one-shotting a capship?

The Pacifier's 1000m^3 hold makes it great for scooping up loot, esp from capship fights. You can make serious cargo runs in it.

I have a Schroedinger for getting around quickly. Before I netted the autofac, I put in cargo upgrades, so I could cary 62 m^3 or so, enough for some of the valuable Industrial/mining and Industrial/construction cargoes. I might upgrade to a milspec Schroedinger, since IIRC, it has _very_ fast shield recharge. But the cloak mostly avoids that problem.
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC
getmoreatp
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Post by getmoreatp »

I had a Gleaner drop an Automated Factory but it had to crash into my Goddard :evil:
bgaskey
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Post by bgaskey »

Auto Factries may not fit in an empty goddard actually :wink:

Tractoring cargo is fun!

One time, a whole fleet of ULN gleaners tried to use a jump simultaneously. I spent an hour or so in a mule picking up loot totaling like 5M creds or so. most profitable legit strategy I've ever had. :wink:
peter
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Re: luckiest salvage ever

Post by peter »

peter wrote: I have a Schroedinger for getting around quickly. Before I netted the autofac, I put in cargo upgrades, so I could cary 62 m^3 or so, enough for some of the valuable Industrial/mining and Industrial/construction cargoes. I might upgrade to a milspec Schroedinger, since IIRC, it has _very_ fast shield recharge. But the cloak mostly avoids that problem.
Now I've bought a Franklin (Hunter milspec, which doesn't seem to be any different from stock) for making high-value cargo runs of AI cores. Auto Facs are more profitable (you can double your money buying at a factory (priceX0.8) and selling at a Frozen Ammonia planet (pricex1.6)), but I've never seen a base or planet with more than one in stock. OTOH, Commerce Centers often have several AI cores in stock (priceX0.8), and you can sell them at Ice planets for priceX1.3. Or many other places for priceX1.2. It's easy to make boatloads of money once you can afford to buy an autofac or an AI core.

I think the Franklin is the fastest ship with more than 100 cargo space (it has 300). By the time you add enough Cargo Upgrades to a Schroedinger, and fill it with AI cores, it would be slower than a Franklin. With a good overdrive unit, a fully armed and kitted out Franklin can pull ~28G. And they're not featherweight, so cargo doesn't slow them down as much as light fighters.

My turrets seem to be buggy, though. I upgraded one of the franklinpd turrets to a Capship Heavy turret (I was surprised it would fit, but a Medium Turret wouldn't...) It seemed to work, at least aiming it manually. It also looked funny sticking out of the side of the Franklin...

It tracks really slowly, so maybe that's why the turret AI didn't seem to fire even after I turned it on. Now my Franklin only _has_ one turret slot. And now it doesn't have any, after quitting and reloading. :( I'll have to fly somewhere and see if I can buy one.

Maybe the save/load code (or some other code) has problems when you're really close to the upgrade space limit. e.g. maybe loses your stuff it it would bring you to zero space left. Or it's counting fractional cubic metres somewhere but not other places. (Franklins only have 300m^3 of upgrade space.)
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC
getmoreatp
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Post by getmoreatp »

How long does cargo stay around? If a Gleaner drops an AutoFac, do I have time to zip to a planet nearby and switch to my dodo?
loki1950
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Post by loki1950 »

I don't think so it would very much depend on how far away that base or planet is time does elapse in transit :wink: and how would you mark the location to return to now a salvage-marker buoy would be idea here and add a nice wrinkle to salvage economics.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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peter
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Post by peter »

loki1950 wrote:I don't think so it would very much depend on how far away that base or planet is time does elapse in transit :wink: and how would you mark the location to return to now a salvage-marker buoy would be idea here and add a nice wrinkle to salvage economics.

Enjoy the Choice :)
Cargo does stay around a bit. If you die while un-docking, for example, you can reload your game and get the cargo your previous self left floating in space. You don't have time to go far, since cargo only stays for a couple minutes, maybe.

Also, note that autofacs take 10000 m^3. You need at least a plowshare.
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC
getmoreatp
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Post by getmoreatp »

No wonder. What's the fastest ship that has that kind of cargo hold? My Dodo with 8 Heavy Tractors is probably too slow?

And, BTW, in my Goddard sometimes I'm trying to tractor in something and it doesn't budge, I end up afterburning into it :evil: I got autotracking on both of my Heavy Tractors.
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Post by bgaskey »

Some stuff weighs a lot and takes a while for the tractors to accelerate. Just get close and stop, then continuously shoot it with the tractors until its in.
peter
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Post by peter »

getmoreatp wrote:No wonder. What's the fastest ship that has that kind of cargo hold? My Dodo with 8 Heavy Tractors is probably too slow?

And, BTW, in my Goddard sometimes I'm trying to tractor in something and it doesn't budge, I end up afterburning into it :evil: I got autotracking on both of my Heavy Tractors.
If it's far away, your tractor beam doesn't even reach it for a while. Have a look from the external cam; You can see the tractor beam extend fairly slowly from the ship.

Also note that to actually scoop something up, it has to be coming in to the front of your ship. There's some code in the beam something.cpp that works out some angles and has a variable called scoop, IIRC. I got the impression that if you want to scoop something up, you have to make sure it's coming in to a pretty small cone at the front of the ship. This won't happen if the cargo is at all off-line, since it will zip by you and be at a large angle when it's close enough to scoop. So be very careful when thrusting towards something you want to scoop.

Otherwise, just be patient, and wait for the cargo to start coming, if you're already within ~1km. Otherwise no harm in getting closer, as long as you keep it under control.
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC
getmoreatp
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Post by getmoreatp »

The cargo I try to scoop is typically right in front of me, blocking my vision at a range of <300m, usually ~150m. I just target it, switch to my 4 Heavy Tractors and wait...and sometimes it just doesn't budge one meter :? It shouldn't be very heavy cargo either, just some landscaping equipment/bulk seeds/books etc.

And, what would be the fastest ship with a 10k m^3 hold? Plowshare?
bgaskey
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Post by bgaskey »

Probably a plowshare. Only other one would be a mule, but that flies like a cow. Others are all real capships that don't even fly. I suggest modifying the ship stats if you actually want to fly them. :wink:
Mets
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Post by Mets »

OK, noob question here:

How do you tell when cargo is dropped, what it is, and how do you dump what you currently have on board?
loki1950
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Post by loki1950 »

@Mets to drop cargo bring up the cargo manifest on the left VDU The 'm" key then hit the "Z" key to drop the top item from the list repeat till your hold is empty.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Mets
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Post by Mets »

Oh, that's easy. So I just point the tractor beam at dropped cargo and it will automatically go into my hold when it gets close enough?
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