Scrap system decent?

[Dreaguh]

Reading on the updates, curious if being a scrapper is worth it, or setting up an AI to scrap ships in various systems, getting mixed answers with just searches.

[NGMZeroX]

I just built a station, and it seem like a passive income. sense it convert Energy and scrap to more expensive materials with nothing else in between. the process is slow though.

the recycling production line in my game keep switching between the two outputs, so the output seem to be halved per hour.

currently I am playing in Vanilla only and I do not think there is any possible way to process anything that is not an S or M ships. it would worth it more with ToA DLC because of the safer unclaimed sectors scraps. otherwise Tug ships will adventure close to battle areas.

[Dreaguh]

Originally posted by NGMZeroX:

I just built a station, and it seem like a passive income. sense it convert Energy and scrap to more expensive materials with nothing else in between. the process is slow though.

the recycling production line in my game keep switching between the two outputs, so the output seem to be halved per hour.

currently I am playing in Vanilla only and I do not think there is any possible way to process anything that is not an S or M ships. it would worth it more with ToA DLC because of the safer unclaimed sectors scraps. otherwise Tug ships will adventure close to battle areas.

Do you think the income is worth the effort?

[Laserak]

The scrap system is pretty much a niche of a niche, and only useful in 1 sector IMO.

The power requirements are just insane, and the whole system feels like a half-assed bolt on that wasn't thought out.

(FYI, I was NOT happy with ToA, maybe this affects my judgement )

[NGMZeroX]

According to my rough estimate the common-wealth recycle station I did will make roughly 490k cr per hour. and costed me about 6+ L mining ships that can generate 300~600k per hour EACH. so no, it didn't worth it at all. the upfront cost is just way too high.

[SirProsik]

The ROI is no where near where it should be but when placing something like the following:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2959166200

in front of a gate to a xenon sector it will make some units ...
Terran recycle works pretty good on xenon ships :p

[Pathogenic]

It makes very little money, even if it is technically all profit once set up. It will take a long time to earn back the initial cost.

[McMuffin]

Depends where you start and what DLC you have.
I wouldn´t bother building it anywhere but Avarice because of the extreme energy cost.
But if you start in Avarice or move there early you can set up a small station with a hand full of tugs and just produce hull parts for yourself in the future.
If you don´t start your own hull parts production asap you will never build anything worth your money.

[Bozz 💀]

I usually set it up early in the game and then I improve the scrapyard over time, in the very early game it's not making much money but it's self sufficient and if you let the reessources stack you can make the building missions without buying any ressources which makes a lot of money over time, and once you improve the scrap station enough it will start making tons of money and building materials.

[SirProsik]

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[markymint]

Hit and miss I reckon. First time round I built in Hat so I was making money but losing Manticores left right and center. Newer game, I built in Getsu Fune, lots of scrap but simply no sales of the output claytronics... in fact, only one sector across my entire map appears to want claytronics and it's nowhere near Getsu Fune. I've moved it to HOP territory but need another session or two to determine if anyone local is buying the claytronics now.

My thought is that, I think you can hit a sweet spot. But finding that is going to be costly and time consuming, because where that sweet spot is will likely change over the course of a game/seed etc. Thankfully later in the game with some profit behind you, moving your scrapyard til you find a good spot isn't a huge costly chore. In fact, the only part of scrapping I don't really like is the manticore itself, having such an abysmal view. A rear porthole at least, to see the thing you're towing from inside would've been great (then again, I'd say that about all interiors, they really need portholes like the L ships jail cells).

[blackphoenixx]

I've found it to be worth it as long as you take advantage of sectors with more than 100% sunlight and split recycling and processing on different stations. Because the recycling modules are the real ecell hogs.

A processing module only needs 6 ecell modules with workforce to be self sufficient running fulltime, so you can pretty much place one wherever there's lots of wrecks like Hatikvah's Choice and use solid miners to transport the scrap metal to a recycling station in a high-sunlight sector like Avarice or Mercury (1-2 per processing module is usually enough even over larger distances).

For hull parts it's still easier and cheaper to make them the old-fashioned way, but for claytronics it lets you sidestep the entire chain of intermediates and for computronic substrate you avoid the huge resource requirements.

You can also force them to produce only one kind of ware instead of alternating by limiting the storage of the one you don't want to 1.