Fixing Found Ships = Totally Worth it Now!

[CitricComet]

So, I just conducted a little experiment on a new game start. When trying to make a bit of earlier game money, it has always been a good bet to find a Distress-signal nav-point, but with the new updates - doing some fixes to those ships seems to be a GREAT improvement with the new values on them.

Scrapped like 3 ships without any updates to them, eh. Not bad, not great either - just a bit better then before for credits. But then, I found me a nice A-class hauler, with 36 cargo + 18 tech. Decided to try and figure out if it was now worth doing any real fixes on it.
Long story, short:
took an hour to mine & refine some basic materials like Platinum, Gold & Chromatic Metal - additionally, I spent like 120k credits on a few simple items like chlorine, pugnium & plat and got almost 5 mil credits for the effort.

I did all the updates in the space ,station, checked the scrap-cost before and after:
Prior to updates, ship was worth 18,750,000 in the visor - only 3,650,000 for scrap.
I was able to repair 11 cargo slots for costs shown above, and that increased the scrap cost to more than 8 million.
I only upgraded cargo slots, and I skipped anything that was not easily available for purchase or scrounge. Totally Worth it! if you ask me.

Abs. LV. these new ship values! (besides all the other free tech BP's I got just taking the time... )


Edited to add this addendum to the original post, so you do not have to read through it all to see it:

Even when finding lower class-C ships with a limited # of slots, it pays to repair a few cargo slots.
I have not quite worked out the 'best' # or % of slots to repair, but it seems that after repairing at least 3, I think, you may be near to maxing our the return value of repair on a ship that has 12 cargo slots. I would encourage you to do your own test on this #. As stated previously, not perfectly certain on the min/max here. But I can say that there is a limit to the maximum return you can get on fixing up the ship. Probably related to the default scrap value of the ship, which can range from 60-85% of base value.

[NZ.Zero]

[japp_02]

It was always worth to fix ships with many slots, that's not new except that now you must also consider how many tech slots and superslots are installed and wether the superslots are adjacent to each other, this makes a big difference in performance when stacking upgrades (but I have to test further the drawbacks and advantages, there is a lot to discover with all these changes).

[CitricComet]

I never found it worth it to upgrade crashed ships previously. At least not in early game. Was always more time efficient for me to just find another ship - vs. fixing any of the slots I could relatively easily. There just was not a lot of payback to it. might make 5 cents on the dollar then. regardless of # of slots.
Now, seems very different to me.

[Geldric™]

Since the v4.0 update the overall value of every ship has increased. The starting ship can now be scrapped for 3.4 million. The previous scrap value was less than 600 thousand.

What didn’t change was the cost to repair damaged slots. There’s one type that costs 100 chromatic metal and another that cost 40 oxygen & 40 Dioxite.

Between the NPC ships that land & the two trade terminals you can easily repair all slots except those that require Activated Copper.

I also don’t repair any slot that requires Wiring looms since I play on extreme difficulty, those mf’s are terribly expensive.

[Fienyx]

So, fixing up ships can now rp more of a used ship sales-individual, and a scrap dealer if you don't want to fix up.

[Bowi]

This sounds complicated. When you write "I did all the updates", what do you mean? I'm confused...

[Bowi]

Also... Uh... I thought we had to fix all the slots before flying in those things... Can you sell / scrap for money without fixing all the red slots?

[Geldric™]

Steam Forum tip: On the upper right corner of your post there is a double chevron icon. If you click that you can edit your post so you don't have to post twice

Originally posted by Bowi:

Also... Uh... I thought we had to fix all the slots before flying in those things... Can you sell / scrap for money without fixing all the red slots?

You only have to repair the Launch Thrusters and Pulse engine to fly a crashed ship. Yes you can scrap or Trade your crashed ship will all the slots still damaged

[Rexxer]

Most of the value of any ship, including crashed ships, is in the number of inventory spaces it has. So any found ship with lots of inventory will always bring a higher trade-in or scrap value. For the time and resources spent in fixing ships though, it's not that worth it for most ships.

Only haulers will have lots of inventory spaces. And frankly, for the time spent, there are much faster ways of making units.

Scrapping is NOT for making units, and in fact, you cannot really as you must actually pay into it to scrap....you lose units. The purpose of scrapping is to make NANITES, not units. Also, scrapping drops various commodities that you can use in making stasis devices which is one of the ways you make lots of easy units.

But of course, the more of the scrap you save, the more units you spend into scrapping. Overall, it pays out, but very indirectly, - through nanites and stasis device components, which aren't all that valuable unless you convert them into stasis devices. Stasis devices, btw, sell for 15,600,000 each. When I churn through the drop components to make stasis devices, I can easily make 60 or so at a time, or about a BILLION units. And that only takes a few minutes....once you have the components piled up in a storage container somewhere.

[Geldric™]

While true for ships you pay for but we’re talking crashed (free) ships. So should we spend say 100k in materials fixing damaged slots to earn an additional 3.6 million? I mean I learned OLD math but that still sounds good

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Geldric:

While true for ships you pay for but we’re talking crashed (free) ships. So should we spend say 100k in materials fixing damaged slots to earn an additional 3.6 million? I mean I learned OLD math but that still sounds good

Not compared to a billion units in a few minutes. Just comparative value/time is all I am talking about. And you can't buy nanites, so you might as well scrap and get those plus stasis device components at the same time. Freighter missions also bring back a ton of stasis device items as well. Usually in combination, you can easily make a billion or so units in a few minutes after completing a few sessions of those activities. (Not to mention all the unbuyable nanites you will also then have to spend on tech upgrades).

[Geldric™]

Sorry…this wasn’t a thread about “how to make billions” we were just talking about scrapping crashed ships and whether or not it’s worth fixing the damaged slots.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Geldric:

Sorry…this wasn’t a thread about “how to make billions” we were just talking about scrapping crashed ships and whether or not it’s worth fixing the damaged slots.

That is the point. Comparative value of the activity.

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

Originally posted by Geldric:

Sorry…this wasn’t a thread about “how to make billions” we were just talking about scrapping crashed ships and whether or not it’s worth fixing the damaged slots.

That is the point. Comparative value of the activity.

It might be your point, but it's not the point of the thread.

[Teratus]

Hmm maybe worth it then if you can afford to throw some resources for easily repaired parts.

I've taken to collecting repair kits as well which I guess you could also use on crashed ships for the more expensive repairs and save yourself the more valuable resources.

I'll have to play around with this and see for myself, although I doubt i'll do it on anything lower than an A class ship.