When to Scrap?

[Fiscal Responsibility]

As I see it, scrap is a bit pointless, as it is currently implemented. It costs enormous energy to process efficiently, which draws you to the 1390% sunlight Avarice system which also has a huge natural scrap resource only 2 sectors away in Aurora.

When you see a bunch of ships being destroyed in fleet battles, it makes you want to utilise the scrap but it isn't really economical if Aurora has 3 million scrap and your massive fleet battle has barely anything compared to that, and your fleet battle isn't located in the middle of a solar flare.

So, what's really the point of ships leaving scrap?

[Dunkler Messias]

Did you know? With the recycled scrap you can also build station modules to produce more energy cells. ;)

There are also several sectors with over 100% sunlight. Either build the recycling station there or build another station with energy cell production and use freighters to transfer energy cells to the recycling station.

I also don't see why you have a problem that the scrap system in windfall (?) is 2 sectors away from the avarice system. Use around 10 or even more manticores and the station will be busy. It takes a while for the station to process the scrap into refined scrap and then recycle it.

[Fiscal Responsibility]

I don't think you really understood what I was saying. I'm not complaining that Avarice is too far from Aurora but that, with Aurora so close to Avarice, and there being basically unlimited scrap in Aurora, there is no point to build a scrapping complex anywhere other than Avarice and cart the scrap from Aurora back there.

Why would I build in a Sector with ~200% sunlight or near Hatikvah, where the Xenon are constantly attacking and leaving scrap wrecks everywhere, when I can build in Avarice and have unlimited sunlight and unlimited scrap?

It's a shame because I want to have an incentive to utilise ship wrecks as scrap but it's just not really worth it.

[Hightower]

I have a huge scrapyard in Getsu Fune. In addition to the natural raw scap i also get a ton of scrap from K-wrecks there. My processors are self-sufficient energy wise and for my recyclers i ship energy from mercury.

[SirProsik]

Originally scrap outside Windfall etc was a bit faster then somehow the scrapper was nerfed after TOA was released to not hold scrap. I have a station with 2 manticore and they wait about 45 minutes per scrap drop. Not sure why but some stations can hold lots of scrap and some will not hold any extra its either bugged or working as intended. In my case the station produces its own scrap from xenon s and m ships that go through the gate :)

[Doom]

Originally posted by Profit Centre Alpha:

As I see it, scrap is a bit pointless, as it is currently implemented.

Scrap allows you to skip ENTIRE commonwealth production chain with just two modules.

Originally posted by Profit Centre Alpha:

So, what's really the point of ships leaving scrap?

You build a shipyard, sell ships to faction which are at war with each others, they fight the moment they fly out of the dock, then you drag them into recycler. You also turn xenon into building materials.

Originally posted by Profit Centre Alpha:

Why would I build in a Sector with ~200% sunlight or near Hatikvah, where the Xenon are constantly attacking and leaving scrap wrecks everywhere, when I can build in Avarice and have unlimited sunlight and unlimited scrap?

In avarice you'd need to deal with tide and protectyon and that hassle outweights having 1300% sun. Meanwhile you can have scrapyard in GetsuFune and support it with energy from mercury. No protectyon or tides involved.

[Ludwig Steiner]

I have a scrap station in Zyarths Dominion I, enouch Xenon to feed it on a regular basis and the 145% Sunlight is nice too, not the MOST efficent one but Im at war with pretty much the whole Western side of the universe so thats something.

[eMYNOCK]

did you guys knew that you can build the recycler and scrap processor saparate from one another and ferry the refined scrap between them using a mining ship?

how about setting up a scrap processor for your self and building a recycler.. as is happens ... for any odd random NPC faction that don't use manticores?
you'll be the sole supplier.

[Bobucles]

there is no point to build a scrapping complex anywhere other than Avarice and cart the scrap from Aurora back there.

But what about building the scrap complex in aurora? Energy is pretty simple to transport in bulk and is certainly easier than hauling a bunch of cubes into a danger sector.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

there is no point to build a scrapping complex anywhere other than Avarice and cart the scrap from Aurora back there.

But what about building the scrap complex in aurora? Energy is pretty simple to transport in bulk and is certainly easier than hauling a bunch of cubes into a danger sector.

Personally, I'd rather set up in Black Hole Sun if I'm shipping energy cells in to exploit the Windfall scrap field - ~100% sunlight means I can usefully offset the station's energy cell consumption without building a completely outlandish solar array, and it's a better location than any of the Windfall-Avarice sectors if I don't want to deal with the tides in Avarice or the various nuisances of operating in Syndicate space.

[blackphoenixx]

I did run my scrapping from Avarice in previous games but after changing things up i wouldn't want to go back.

A scrap processor only needs 90k ecells to run non-stop. That's not too terrible to bring in with traders if your SPP isn't too far and it doesn't need too many ecell modules if you have 200%+ sunlight somewhere nearby (which is basically almost everywhere).
The recyclers are a little more power hungry but an L freighter or two moves a whole lot of ecells very fast.

And there's two problems with building in Avarice:
The first is that it's way off the beaten path - it's 3 jumps just to get to the highway ring ffs, there's no one there to trade with except VIG and they're pirates.

The second is that building your scrap station there means you have to deal with the Tide.
Which means either giving all your traders and scrappers Tenacity mods, not using S & M ships at all or accepting large efficiency and ship losses.

And it's not necessary. My current game has my SPP in The Reach and the recycling station in Heretic's End, with processing stations in Hatikvah's Choice I & Windfall IV.

The Reach still has enough sunlight to easily make tons of ecells, but the proximity to the highway ring means delivering ecells to my processing and recycling stations needs a lot less trade ships and i never get bothered by the Tide killing my ships or forcing them to sit in front of a gate for half their time.

Sure, i needed roughly double the amount of ecell modules, but that's a price worth paying for the easy of use imo.

[Mechanical]

I avoided scrap for the longest time. But between scrapping and closed-loop, its even easier then terrain production. Just need to have the tugs behave like NPCs (but there is a mod for that).

[Fiscal Responsibility]

Well you guys have convinced me mostly and I think I'll refine my complaint:

The presence of massive and renewable natural scrap reservoirs like in Getsu Fune or Aurora means that there's much less reason to collect actual ship carcasses. I realised this after killing like 5 Ks, which are worth about 20,000 scrap each - but even 100,000 scrap pales in comparison to the millions available from sector scrap.

[Mechanical]

You can always create global orders to white list sectors and have the scrap station set to those orders.. for RP reasons!

[Frienby]

I thought I could fuel a Getsu Fune scrapyard with mercury's energy.... ended up having to cover 20km in energy solar panels, biggest noob mistake in trying to set up a scrap yard. Eventually a hundred freighters or so ferrying energy meant I could expand it, but oof, learning how to balance the energy costs of scrapyards is painful. lol

[blackphoenixx]

Originally posted by Profit Centre Alpha:

Well you guys have convinced me mostly and I think I'll refine my complaint:

The presence of massive and renewable natural scrap reservoirs like in Getsu Fune or Aurora means that there's much less reason to collect actual ship carcasses. I realised this after killing like 5 Ks, which are worth about 20,000 scrap each - but even 100,000 scrap pales in comparison to the millions available from sector scrap.

The exact number doesn't really matter too much since a processing module can't handle more than 12k per hour anyway.

For the same reason you don't really need a Teuta to harvest K's and I's - the dozens of smaller wrecks they're generally accompanied by give your Manticores more than enough to do until the next wave comes unless you build a truly giant processing station.

I generally favor several smaller processing stations distributed around the universe because transporting scrap metal to central recycling is easy - M miners are much faster than traders and never get harassed by pirates after all, and a single Plutus Sentinel can cart 1-2 processors worth of scrap halfway across the universe easily if you use repeat orders and a good travel engine.