Despawn timers

[Storm]

Hi there,

Does anyone know what the despawn timers are for the various things in the game?

I've read up on VERY old posts, that there could be a difference between IS/OOS, and possibly if you're IS and nearby, vs IS and far away.

1. Wrecks - I'm curious what the despawn timer is, and whether there's an IS/OOS/Nearby difference. I haven't started using salvage ships, so would like to know more about this in preparation.

2. Containers - Loot seems to despawn VERY quickly, while mined stuff (asteroids popping?) tends to sit around for ages. Not sure about ejected/dropped containers (ore/cargo vs player inventory)?

My only real gripe I have, is that loot containers dropped from popping enemies despawn far too quickly. In many battles, you don't have time to finish the battle, and then loot. Resulting in me abandoning the fight mid way, leaving the mission peeps or sector security to keep fighting while I start looting.

Very often, the loot is the only real value to these engagements, so if you can't loot after the fight, it becomes rather pointless to take part.

Would love some input on the above please.

Thanks!

[Winter's Embers]

Unless you're using a mod to expand/extend/speed-up the container magnet, fly with it always active. I re-assigned the key to "V" since I use WASD for strafing. Also, if you're in a large-scale engagement, use a capital ship. A Destroyer has a 5km range for it's magnet so you can Hoover up the loot while shooting bad guys and your turrets plunk away at whatever you've assigned to them. If you keep your speed down (relatively speaking since a destroyer is usually slow as hell!!!), you can keep the loot coming.
I had an instance where I had to keep speed at maximum while in a destroyer and being chased by a K and about 50 Xenon N, M, and P. I still kept the container magnet active while fleeing the fight and every time my turrets took out an enemy, it's loot would join this 'wagon-train' of loot flowing backward from my ship. When the fighters/gunboats were finally gone, I slowed down long enough to suck up about 120 containers, then got the hell out of there before the K finally caught up.
Loot loves your magnet so keep it going! :)

As for the timers themselves, I don't know but I've experienced similar de-spawn times as you reported in your original post. Loot despawns actively at a very fast rate for me. Wrecks tend to stick around until the end of battle. I think part of the timer is whether you got credit for the kill or not. From my xenon example above, the loot containers never de-spawned (it took about an hour to cross Faulty Logic at 169 km/s!) but it was always being magneted as well as being my kill credit loot. SCA Phoenix's I kill for trying to loot my stations also stay much longer than NPC-killed ships.

[Storm]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Your kills vs not yours.

Also, possibly the "tractor" prevented the despawn, hard to say.

I have also been thinking about moving my tractor button, will keep V in mind, thanks!

[Tommytools]

Originally posted by Storm:

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Your kills vs not yours.

Also, possibly the "tractor" prevented the despawn, hard to say.

I have also been thinking about moving my tractor button, will keep V in mind, thanks!

I've sat with the magnet on for long periods myself in my osaka/syn/asgard, loot containers DO despawn when being tractored. I've had gray loot boxes (i.e. destroyed/despawned) bouncing off my hull on numerous occasions, sometimes a fraction of a second before it arrives at my ship.

[Winter's Embers]

Originally posted by Tommytools:

Originally posted by Storm:

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Your kills vs not yours.

Also, possibly the "tractor" prevented the despawn, hard to say.

I have also been thinking about moving my tractor button, will keep V in mind, thanks!

I've sat with the magnet on for long periods myself in my osaka/syn/asgard, loot containers DO despawn when being tractored. I've had gray loot boxes (i.e. destroyed/despawned) bouncing off my hull on numerous occasions, sometimes a fraction of a second before it arrives at my ship.

But, are you the one creating those containers by destroying the enemy? I'm pretty sure my example in Faulty Logic occurred because of both (destroyed them and magnet use). I have had containers explode while using the magnet inside large battles in which I am not participating (think Pontifex's Claim/Pious Mists II or Second Contact: Flashpoint/True Sight) and, yes, they do seem to *love* to wait until they're 5 meters from my hull before doing so. But the ones I created in Faulty Logic didn't. However, this experience was from 6.0 rather than 7.0 so I don't know how much change they made for the update. I do know there were some changes due to the Scrap Electronics and the utter lack of SETA/SINZA parts in even heavy battlefield clutters.

[SiliconStew]

Originally posted by Tommytools:

Originally posted by Storm:

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Your kills vs not yours.

Also, possibly the "tractor" prevented the despawn, hard to say.

I have also been thinking about moving my tractor button, will keep V in mind, thanks!

I've sat with the magnet on for long periods myself in my osaka/syn/asgard, loot containers DO despawn when being tractored. I've had gray loot boxes (i.e. destroyed/despawned) bouncing off my hull on numerous occasions, sometimes a fraction of a second before it arrives at my ship.

Grey containers are not "destroyed/despawned", they are items your ship cannot carry, such as Ore. It's common for destroyed ships to drop a mix of blue (collectable by you) and grey (non-collectable by you) containers.

As for leaving a fight to go loot, if you have a second ship available, you can set it to perform loot pickups for you. RIght-click anywhere in the battle zone and select Collect Drops. You can even set up repeat orders to collect drops and sell what it picks up at a station. For the crafting items, just visit the captain of the ship occasionally and have them transfer those items to you.

[Chucky Rocketson]

Yea sometimes if your ship is full up on missiles you can't pick those up either and will be grey and will bounce of your hull. by far and away for me, missiles drop way more frequently than any other ware.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by SiliconStew:

As for leaving a fight to go loot, if you have a second ship available, you can set it to perform loot pickups for you. RIght-click anywhere in the battle zone and select Collect Drops. You can even set up repeat orders to collect drops and sell what it picks up at a station. For the crafting items, just visit the captain of the ship occasionally and have them transfer those items to you.

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

[Chucky Rocketson]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Originally posted by SiliconStew:

As for leaving a fight to go loot, if you have a second ship available, you can set it to perform loot pickups for you. RIght-click anywhere in the battle zone and select Collect Drops. You can even set up repeat orders to collect drops and sell what it picks up at a station. For the crafting items, just visit the captain of the ship occasionally and have them transfer those items to you.

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

You have to set Repeat Orders in the Behavior tab. After you click CONFIRM, only then can you issue the orders to repeat. It will never 'complete' an order.
https://i.imgur.com/YRJXd8j.png

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by Chucky Rocketson:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

You have to set Repeat Orders in the Behavior tab. After you click CONFIRM, only then can you issue the orders to repeat. It will never 'complete' an order.

Yes, I did that, too. That's not the point. The collect loot order would not pick up some of the items that it would when manually ordered to. Even with the repeat method, the scout merely returned to the center point where I issued the collect loot command, ignoring some items.

And as I fire up the game to get the names of the more common items I saw it ignore, I need to correct myself: it wasn't trade wares it wasn't collecting, but rather general wares. But the primary two general ware, non-illegal items I saw it ignoring were "Processing Panel 7A" & "Processing Panel 8X". *shrug*

[Chucky Rocketson]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Originally posted by Chucky Rocketson:

You have to set Repeat Orders in the Behavior tab. After you click CONFIRM, only then can you issue the orders to repeat. It will never 'complete' an order.

Yes, I did that, too. That's not the point. The collect loot order would not pick up some of the items that it would when manually ordered to. Even with the repeat method, the scout merely returned to the center point where I issued the collect loot command, ignoring some items.

And as I fire up the game to get the names of the more common items I saw it ignore, I need to correct myself: it wasn't trade wares it wasn't collecting, but rather general wares. But the primary two general ware, non-illegal items I saw it ignoring were "Processing Panel 7A" & "Processing Panel 8X". *shrug*

It should stop picking things up if its capacity is full, but only items that fill the capacity, such as Quantum Tubes or some such. Also it will ignore missiles if it can't carry any more missiles either. I've never had them ignore panels... that's how I make my money lol. Make sure you're doing this: https://i.imgur.com/YRJXd8j.png

[SiliconStew]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Originally posted by SiliconStew:

As for leaving a fight to go loot, if you have a second ship available, you can set it to perform loot pickups for you. RIght-click anywhere in the battle zone and select Collect Drops. You can even set up repeat orders to collect drops and sell what it picks up at a station. For the crafting items, just visit the captain of the ship occasionally and have them transfer those items to you.

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

Was the ship's order for Default Response for Police Interdiction still set to the default of Comply? If so, it would drop any illegal cargo it collected if it was scanned by police and make is seem like it wasn't collecting those things.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by Chucky Rocketson:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Yes, I did that, too. That's not the point. The collect loot order would not pick up some of the items that it would when manually ordered to. Even with the repeat method, the scout merely returned to the center point where I issued the collect loot command, ignoring some items.

And as I fire up the game to get the names of the more common items I saw it ignore, I need to correct myself: it wasn't trade wares it wasn't collecting, but rather general wares. But the primary two general ware, non-illegal items I saw it ignoring were "Processing Panel 7A" & "Processing Panel 8X". *shrug*

It should stop picking things up if its capacity is full, but only items that fill the capacity, such as Quantum Tubes or some such. Also it will ignore missiles if it can't carry any more missiles either. I've never had them ignore panels... that's how I make my money lol. Make sure you're doing this: https://i.imgur.com/YRJXd8j.png

These items it's ignoring go into the pilot's personal inventory, not the ship's. And as said twice, when manually ordered to collect it, it does.

Originally posted by SiliconStew:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

Was the ship's order for Default Response for Police Interdiction still set to the default of Comply? If so, it would drop any illegal cargo it collected if it was scanned by police and make is seem like it wasn't collecting those things.

Yes, but I was watching it as it collected (from map view, OOS). There were no police ships, and it simply did not approach the illegal wares.

[Chucky Rocketson]

Originally posted by SiliconStew:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

So, I tried this recently, and was rather disappointed with it. I had a scout moving through the wreckage field of a battle and it only picked up some of it before registering the order as complete. It seemed to only target crafting wares that were not illegal. While I suppose avoiding the illegal stuff may have been for the best, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically pick up the trade wares (it would when manually ordered to). It would be nice if there were some settings around this....

Was the ship's order for Default Response for Police Interdiction still set to the default of Comply? If so, it would drop any illegal cargo it collected if it was scanned by police and make is seem like it wasn't collecting those things.

This is also a thing. Make sure you periodically check the area manually for lootboxes, then have a ship collect the loot boxes, lol.

Oh and there's also a setting that has your ships NOT pick up illegal wares, make sure that's not set! I believe it's in Global Orders menu. (shift + i then on left side panel of buttons). Panels are not illegal, however.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by Chucky Rocketson:

Oh and there's also a setting that has your ships NOT pick up illegal wares, make sure that's not set!

For the illegal wares, this may be what I'm missing. Hmm, makes me wonder if those Processing Panels are somehow accidentally included in that.

Gotta find that and try it.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by Chucky Rocketson:

Oh and there's also a setting that has your ships NOT pick up illegal wares, make sure that's not set!

Well, I can't find that setting you are referring to. I see one about what my police vessels should do if contraband is found, but nothing in regards to what a vessel set to collect loot should do.

That said, I just tried it again and the scout is picking up those items, now. I have no idea what happened before. Either I encountered some kind of bug, or I didn't do something right somewhere that I have no idea what. *shrug*