Capture & salvage?

[ColManiac]

This prob has already been asked, but is this going to be implemented? This is one of the reasons I liked the x series. Why spend cash when you can capture a fat expensive cap ship . Also I would like to see salvage implemented, x3 had it to an extent, but I would like to see an abandoned ship beyond economical repair from who ever dumped it and the ability to repair it with time:)

[Alci]

you have military personal aboard and we've seen boarding mission active so I would not worry about 1:1 boarding that much. It was said they are considering/implementing other ways to do it (I assume some command/remote way, that was not possible in Rebirth).

As for salvage.. I almost recall they mentioned that as part of exploration. But I don't know where to verify it and almost certain it was not shown or talked in details (like how rare it will be - in X3 it was extremely rare, basically only for prototypes if I remember, which is easter egg level, not exploration level)

[ColManiac]

Hi yea you could only get prototype's as salvage, I hope they add a full salvage operation for any type of ship:). I liked the 2 versions of capturing ships. Early x3 you could use a computer hack which I found easier than using troops. Though x3 now troops is more realistic and just as easy as the computer hack.

[The Cuban Nightmare]

I don't recall if they have specifically mentioned boarding or salvaging, but the latest video did mention that piracy was possible. Given what happened in previous games, I'd be very surprised if boarding / bailing was not included in some way, shape, or form.

Honestly, my biggest hope is that the supplies needed for ship / station building are extractable from ships you capture. The reason I want this is because it would make for incredible pirate gameplay. Imagine it - you find a good location for a hideaway and set up a scrap shop there. Captured ships are taken apart and the hulls are used to make a rough base, somewhat similar to the Split Colony in X:R. Additional captures provide the goods needed to make a more reasonable dry dock and then the entire station continues to expand as captured or discarded ships are broken down into the components needed.

I know that this is unlikely, but hopefully mods will add this capability. I really enjoy the idea of building my own empire and not being dependent on others, kind of like playing some of the mods for Mount and Blade: Warband, specifically the Prophesy of Pendor mod.

[csaba]

The 2 largest abandoned ships I ever found in XR was a Balor and a Teladi trade ship. Neither were particularly useful or expensive ships. Nothing you can't get by stacking a few combat missions.

Of course finding the same sized ships in X4 where you start probably in a scout is way more rewarding than in XR where you started basically with a high end corvette.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I don't recall if they have specifically mentioned boarding or salvaging, but the latest video did mention that piracy was possible. Given what happened in previous games, I'd be very surprised if boarding / bailing was not included in some way, shape, or form.

Honestly, my biggest hope is that the supplies needed for ship / station building are extractable from ships you capture. The reason I want this is because it would make for incredible pirate gameplay. Imagine it - you find a good location for a hideaway and set up a scrap shop there. Captured ships are taken apart and the hulls are used to make a rough base, somewhat similar to the Split Colony in X:R. Additional captures provide the goods needed to make a more reasonable dry dock and then the entire station continues to expand as captured or discarded ships are broken down into the components needed.

I know that this is unlikely, but hopefully mods will add this capability. I really enjoy the idea of building my own empire and not being dependent on others, kind of like playing some of the mods for Mount and Blade: Warband, specifically the Prophesy of Pendor mod.

I honestly only ever went the "actually legitimate businessperson" route in X2 - I mostly played X3 and Rebirth as a sellsword/smuggler/pirate. If we get the ability to chop-shop ships we capture and build stuff out of their component parts, I will be just... so happy.

What we've been hearing about how factions work in X4 kind of makes me think that the devs are at least more seriously considering pirate factions to be fully realized factions - meaning they might not be just randomly spawning murder-hobos anymore, but actually have their own place in the economy and supply chain. I'll be interested to see how that shakes out.

Of course, I guarantee there will be a mod for this. So, there's that. ^^

[Honved]

I'm another big fan of capturing damaged ships, but the abandoned and undamaged prototype "Easter Eggs" floating throughout the game universe always felt cheesy. I don't mind a few freebies, but they should require a substantial investment in either time or money to be returned to operational status. They should have been abandoned for a good reason, not purely due to some too-frequently occurring pilot accident, like leaving the cockpit to take a leak in open space and accidentally locking it behind you.

I also tend to use a mod to add a SLIM chance of bailing by capital ships when they're close to total destruction. Generally, I set it so there's often already enough firepower on the way to finish them off if they abandon ship, but I generally manage to salvage one or two ships over the course of an entire game. In one case, I got myself a Q with a single point of hull remaining (not a single percentage, a single POINT). In that sorry condition, repairs aren't practical to buy (they'd cost the same as or more than the value of the ship), and it takes hours of criminally boring real time to fix that many hull points with the spacesuit repair laser. Ideally, you should be able to do some makeshift repairs to get it moving, crew it, and then have the paid crew repair it gradually over a period of 2-3 full days of actual playing time before it's back to full functionality. Even better if all repairs above some minimal hull percentage (like 10%) require some materials, like Teladianium worth about 10-20% of the value of the lost hull points (aboard either the repairing ship or the repaired vessel, so you could use the spacesuit laser without carrying a ton of materials in a backpack), possibly a tiny amount of more exotic parts like Computer Components or Quantum Tubes, plus tons of labor.

Basically, I prefer occasional steep discounts to outright freebies. It takes money to make money, so if you have nothing, you can't suddenly get rich instantly by finding an abandoned ship, but it can speed up the process by a good bit.

[captainradish]

you have military personal aboard and we've seen boarding mission active so I would not worry about 1:1 boarding that much. It was said they are considering/implementing other ways to do it (I assume some command/remote way, that was not possible in Rebirth).

As for salvage.. I almost recall they mentioned that as part of exploration. But I don't know where to verify it and almost certain it was not shown or talked in details (like how rare it will be - in X3 it was extremely rare, basically only for prototypes if I remember, which is easter egg level, not exploration level)

In one of the Steam trailers they mentioned breaking into a "secured derelict spacestation," so I'm assuming there is salvage in the game. That is pretty much a requirement for the X series (and how I made most of my money in X3).

[Tomonor]

In one of the Steam trailers they mentioned breaking into a "secured derelict spacestation," so I'm assuming there is salvage in the game. That is pretty much a requirement for the X series (and how I made most of my money in X3).

Unless it's a plot line, because they didn't say it in plural form, but breaking into a single "spacestation". And that is the HQ plot, which will invole finding an ancient Terran station with a working transporter research station so I'm assuming that adventurous spacewalks will be limited to that plotline and finding crystals in asteroids.

Also, the fact that they literally said here on the forum that there won't be salvaging, in the beginning at least.

[Alci]

In one of the Steam trailers they mentioned breaking into a "secured derelict spacestation," so I'm assuming there is salvage in the game.

and it was ruin. So PHQ aside I "read" it as those "random" derelicts might be there as a source of blueprints for your own stations. Not to be "salvaged" (not sure I would want a ruined station of who knows what configuration placed who knows how far from trading routes)

[ColManiac]

I'm another big fan of capturing damaged ships, but the abandoned and undamaged prototype "Easter Eggs" floating throughout the game universe always felt cheesy. I don't mind a few freebies, but they should require a substantial investment in either time or money to be returned to operational status. They should have been abandoned for a good reason, not purely due to some too-frequently occurring pilot accident, like leaving the cockpit to take a leak in open space and accidentally locking it behind you.

I also tend to use a mod to add a SLIM chance of bailing by capital ships when they're close to total destruction. Generally, I set it so there's often already enough firepower on the way to finish them off if they abandon ship, but I generally manage to salvage one or two ships over the course of an entire game. In one case, I got myself a Q with a single point of hull remaining (not a single percentage, a single POINT). In that sorry condition, repairs aren't practical to buy (they'd cost the same as or more than the value of the ship), and it takes hours of criminally boring real time to fix that many hull points with the spacesuit repair laser. Ideally, you should be able to do some makeshift repairs to get it moving, crew it, and then have the paid crew repair it gradually over a period of 2-3 full days of actual playing time before it's back to full functionality. Even better if all repairs above some minimal hull percentage (like 10%) require some materials, like Teladianium worth about 10-20% of the value of the lost hull points (aboard either the repairing ship or the repaired vessel, so you could use the spacesuit laser without carrying a ton of materials in a backpack), possibly a tiny amount of more exotic parts like Computer Components or Quantum Tubes, plus tons of labor.

Basically, I prefer occasional steep discounts to outright freebies. It takes money to make money, so if you have nothing, you can't suddenly get rich instantly by finding an abandoned ship, but it can speed up the process by a good bit.

This is what I like:). For an abandoned ship it would have to have major damage and major sub system damage or destroyed. You should be able to find these in old battle grounds or floating in areas not populated or off the beaten track. For finding and repairing yes it should take a lot of time and money if parts need replacing. In x3 I have also seen abandoned stations floating around sectors like solar plants and asteroid mining stations. You could recomission an asteroid station into a makeshift outpost for your storage and the solar plants repaired and used as what they were intended. You could have a 2 way system of capturing ships. The 1st costs man power and do a marine boarding, this would take minimal damage to the ship but a while to take over with the risk of losing all the troops. The 2nd would be to get the crew to bail. This would cost a lot in damage in repairs and may not be profitable but easiest way to take over. It could be set as hull damage down to 10% and or total destruction or partial destruction to subsystems depending on the class of ship being captured.