Ship salvage?

[raevela]

Hi all, I'm new to this game and still learning the ropes. I've had several ships pass by me on occasion, but how can you tell which is abandoned, which is a pirate, and which is friendly? I've just been avoiding all of them unless they hail me.

[aY227]

Most of the time:
Pirate - no transponder, but you can hail it and pay.
Salvage - transponder works but no response, and well ship is dead

[Lack of Stuff]

Hit J and check your Pilot menu. Anything labelled UIO is a ship with no transponder and is likely a pirate/anarchist. Everyone else is friendly or at least not outright hostile. You should get in the habit of hailing cause they can give you coordinates for points of interest etc.

There is an exception that will have an active transponder but will still be hostile but I'll let you encounter it.

[SirusTheMadDJ]

For the salvage prompt in the title, I'll step in with this.

A ship doesn't need to be...ah..."officially" abandoned to salvage it. Basically, you'll need the manipulator arm as a high stress hardpoint, and a bit of patience.

If there's no response or a hailing error, make a note of where they're pinging from on the LIDAR, and drift on over to say hi. If their RCS or torch are firing, there's people in there. I find not everyone wants a chat, so this is the easier way to check.

If you do find a ship that's drifting without engines kicking in, or if you've given someone some new speed holes in their reactor, then the fun begins.

You'll want to first try to slow it down first if needed. Match speed with it, preferably facing left. Make sure your manipulator arm is set to pick up "Undefined", and slowly and carefully step up the speed until the arm connects. You might go for a spin, in which case AVOID USING S. Thrusters can kill ships if you're careless, and you're pay day drops like a stone to around 50k-75k depending on the source of the crew. Wait until your main thruster is pointing toward your momentum, and use that.

If the ship's reactor on the poor muppet you're salvaging in, stop using your RCS as the heat from your thrusters are melting down the core. Give it a chance to cool down, then keep slowly bringing your bounty to a somewhat stop while you're facing left.

Set course for the station, and pray. Once it hits 100% for returning and the ship is still attached, you'll get either a pay out or the name of the ship.

Don't panic if you do make it go pop. It may drop a lifepod, and they're still pretty nice chunk of money.

[Lack of Stuff]

If you want to do a lot of salvaging then get a Vulture or a KTA24, both have RCS layouts that will allow you to arrest forward momentum without causing an explosion, much easier than trying to do it without some thrusters.