Are salvage missions just a trick?

[Osmium]

Sometimes I'll get to a minor faction that I need rep with in order to get a permit or something and they only offer salvage missions. They might offer 6 identically phrased missions, but 2 or 3 of them end up requiring you to pick up illegal salvage. It's not always the most expensive ones either. I'm forced to either abandon the mission and lose reputation or risk smuggling and also losing reputation in my non-smuggling ship.

Half of my deaths so far have been during salvage missions. I'll drop out of hypercruise and within a few seconds half a dozen pirates show up. If I IMMEDIATELY turn and burn without getting my objective, I sometimes escape with 0 shields and 20-40% hull remaining. Are these missions only possible with fully decked out anacondas or winged up with 4 other players?

I lost the last week's worth of exploration data and engineer modules (about 40 hours of gameplay) last night and I still feel physically ill when I think about it. I had ship insurance, otherwise I'd quit the game outright, but I also don't want to play anymore. Am I honestly supposed to bring an army to those missions? They aren't even combat themed.

The only advice I've heard is to use controller limpets to grab the objectives from as far away as you can. I have about a 15 second lifespan after dropping out of warp if someone's waiting for me, so I still don't think that can work.

[Ray Robertson]

One can do these if you are fast and your ship has good defenses. I've done them with my Vulture and Asp Explorer. You usually get time to collect 1 or 2 canisters and then you need to get the hell out. You then need to wait for another signal source to spawn.

I scoop the canisters.

Edit: The respawning can glitch out sometimes, in the sense that it doesn't happen. If you see normal signal sources spawning or nothing at all for very long, then just drop out of SC and back into SC to reinstance.

Do not delay fleeing, if they start firing at you it is almost too late.

[clobbertime]

To me the ambush seems to happen more often with the trade data collection missions than the others, so you might can try avoiding taking those. Like Ray said, you can try and grab a canistor or two then jump out to get repaired at a nearby station then come back until you've recovered enough to finish the mission, the ambush will happen each time you re-enter that mission

[martin77]

you can make other missions to the law faction in this system.
When its high enough the police will spawn after a time and help?

[Turd Ferguson]

Salvage missions usually have pirates that jump in when you get close to the mission items. There are several ways to approach this -

1) ignore the pirates and finish scooping 1 item, close your scoop and jump out. Look for another USS, they will continue to spawn until you've gotten everything you need for the mission.

2) install collector limpet controllers. When you drop in to the system, fire off a couple of colelctor limpets. Fight the pirates the best you can given your cargo scoop is down until the collector limpets have completed their job.

ships like Pythons, Clippers, and Anacondas make great salvage ships, but it can be done in others.

Make sure your "report crimes against me" is OFF because if you report the attack space cops will jump in and scan you...and if your cargo is illegal salvage that's going to cause a problem.

[Osmium]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I was really frustrated when I wrote my original post and half expected to just be mocked for being bad at combat. Steam forums can be hit and miss when it comes to polite responses but players of this game are better than most.

I've clocked about 400 hours in this game, although to be honest I've only played about half that due to the fact tha steam still registers the game as running if the secondary launch window is open. In all that time I've avoided combat and still have a harmless combat rank. I simply don't like aerial dogfighting games and enjoy E:D for the perspective it gives me of the galaxy we actually live in.

Whenever I'm interdicted by pirates during a trading run, they're always the easiest NPC's because I never fight back. However, during the salvage missions, they throw the best NPC's in the game at me, regardless of combat rank. I'm getting blown out of the sky by more than just adders with pulse lasers.I should also point out it makes zero narrative sense for these ships to teleport into my salvage area when there were no ships in the system I was in. I have to spend several minutes flying from the star to the planet to the point of interest but the NPC"s can just blink into reality wherever they want to.

My ship is currently a Type-7, which is one of the slower ships in the game. Even boosting straight towards my target, I only got within 1.5km before destruction. I found and equipped some collector limpets before logging out but I haven't gone back to the game since my last post.

[clobbertime]

I've done a lot of these missions in my old Cobra M3, it's fast and nimble, and cheap. You might want to get one to use for just these missions, a lot easier to escape when you are fast and agile. I had a a mix of pulse lasers and multi cannons, all on turrets and set to fire at will. They would blast at any hostile that got close while I was scooping the canistors. Get the best shields you can and hull reinforcement packages, you only need a big enough cargo bay for up to four canistors.

[eMYNOCK]

Not to mention that it is always safer to pick not too much similar salvage missions.

i am not sure if stacked missions spawn stacked ambush ships... but my last devastating salvage journey forced me to declare bankrupt.

[ASMR gaming]

you have to be careful with stacking, adding some random loot or exploration data is a better bet along the way

[Julius Sebastus]

When they start shooting I press ''C'' for my chaff launcher and I have enough time to flee. Maybe it can help you too.

[Turd Ferguson]

having my sccop open means I can't go fast so I put 4 pips to system and 2 to weapons and blast 'em while the limpets collect all the loot.

[Ray Robertson]

Mission NPCs scale with the rank of the mission, so always look at the rank of the mission when deciding to take it.

[Osmium]

Originally posted by Ray Robertson:

Mission NPCs scale with the rank of the mission, so always look at the rank of the mission when deciding to take it.

Hmm, I bet that's part of my problem. The NPC's don't seem to scale with other non-combat missions so that might be why it didn't occur to me to turn down the higher ranked salvage missions.

For example, sometimes I get a popup in the middle of a delivery mission that says a named guy is after me and I get a bonus for killing him. That guy is never too strong to run away from, even if the original mission is highly ranked.