A lot of NPC ships get destroyed in null security space every day and leave a ton of space trash – aka wrecks – behind. This opens a great opportunity to make an easy buck for new players: salvaging.
The Basics of Salvaging
Salvaging is the process of using a Salvager I or II Module on a wreck to turn it into salvage, a raw material used to build rigs. Since there is always a great demand for rigs, there is also a great demand for salvage and you can get a relatively good price for it compared to minerals.
The salvager module has a base activation time of 10 seconds, after which there is chance that the wreck turns into salvage. If the attempt fails, the salvager will keep trying to salvage the wreck until it succeeds or it is turn off. The amount of salvage you will get depends on the size of the wreck (small, medium, large, structure wrecks …) and may result in no salvage at all even after a successful attempt. The unmodified base chance (5%) of a salvager can be increased by the following skills/modules:
Salvaging Skill: This skill increases the base chance by 5% per skill level
Salvage Tackle Rigs I or II: These increase the chance by 10% / 15% per level
Poteque ‘Prospector’ Salvaging SV-905 Implant: Increases the chance by 5%. This is a slot 5 implant that costs around 30 mil isk in Jita and is in my opinion not worth the isk for the bonus it provides.
A wreck needs to be within the 5000m range of the salvager to be salvaged . Since wrecks are mostly scattered over a bigger area after killing NPC ships, it is a good idea to first move the wrecks closer to your ship. There are two modules that can be used for that:
Small Tractor Beam I : A high slot module that pulls wrecks closer to your ship if activated on it. It has a base range of 20km, so you might still use a propulsion module of your ship to get closer to wrecks that are further away.
Mobile Tractor Unit (MTU): A deployable structure that works similar to a tractor beam. The MTU pulls one wreck at a time closer to the MTUs deployed location until the wrecks is within 2500m. It also automatically collects the loot in the wrecks into the MTU if there is any.
There is also a Salvage Drone that can be used to salvage ships. The drone can salvage wrecks within the control range of the drone, which is much higher than the 5000 m range of a salvager. The base chance of the drone is 3% which is increased by 2% per level of the Salvage Drone Operation skill. The ships rigs do not affect the salvage drones base chance. The other stats of salvage drones are very similar to light combat drones just without the possibility to inflict damage.
Salvaging Ships
So what kind of ship should I use to start a salvaging career? In general a salvager module can be fit to any ship on a high slot, but there are two kinds of ships that generally work best as salvaging boats:
Destroyers: All destroyers have 8 high slots, which is great to fit plenty of Salvagers or Tractor Beams. The rig slots should be filled with Small Salvage Tackle rigs. In the mid slots you usually fit a Medium Capacitor Battery for sufficient capacitor to run your salvagers permanently and a 5 mn Microwarpdrive to burn closer to wrecks that are too far away for your tractor beams. In the low slots you can fit Expanded Cargo Holds to increase cargo capacity or fitting modules if needed. The salvage itself has a very low volume but the additional loot from the wrecks can be quite big. The basic idea of the fit will work for any T1 destroyer. How many salvager vs tractor beams you should fit in the high slots depends very much on the way the wrecks are distributed in space, but two tractor beams are usually good enough.
This is an example of a salvaging Thrasher fit:
Noctis: The Noctis is the king of salvage boats. It has a similar slot layout to a destroyer and therefore the fit is almost the same. However, it has bonuses to tractor beam range and velocity and a reduced cycle time for salvagers. Both hull bonuses significantly speed up the salvaging process. It has a big cargo hold for salvage and can loot several sites without the need to dock. On the downside, the Noctis hull costs 50-60 mil which is quite a lot of isk compared to a 1 mil destroyer hull. But if you are salvaging a lot, it might be a good investment.
How to find the Wrecks?
Now that we have the basic mechanics and ships sorted out, we just need a decent number of wrecks to salvage. This is where salvaging becomes a very social activity, because you need to find other players that are willing to let you salvage their wrecks. The best way to do that is to talk to the players in your corp or alliance that do a lot of ratting and ask if you could salvage their wrecks when they are finished with their combat anomalies. Many ratters don’t bother to salvage themselves, so usually it is just a matter of asking them to let you know.
Of course you can just salvage your own finished combat anomalies and I will discuss next If this will be profitable for you or not.
There is also ratting going on in asteroid belts in null sec, however the amount of wrecks is quite small and usually not worth the effort. This might only be an option to fill the time between salvaging combat anomalies.
How much I can earn?
The amount of salvage and loot you will get from a wreck is quite random. However both rewards will be higher, the bigger the wreck is. I tested both of the above fits in Guristas null sec space and got about 3-5 mil in salvage and 3-7 mil in loot from the two most popular null sec anomalies (Rock Havens and Forsaken Hubs). To completely salvage such a site, you need to salvage about 50 wrecks. A salvage boat in the fits posted above can salvage around 2-3 wrecks per minute. So, with 5 salvagers on your ship it will take less than 5 minutes to completely salvage a site. However, since most of the times the wrecks are spread out you need to tractor them closer to your ship, which can add another 5 minutes to the time to complete it. The Noctis is generally a bit faster with this, because of the greater tractor beam range and shorter salvager cycle time, which will safe a minute or two depending on the site.
If you only salvage sites with all wrecks stacked within 5000m and you have a constant supply of finished sites available from other players in the same system, you could finish up to 10 sites per hour, which comes to 30-50 mil in salvage and possible 30-70 mil isk in loot. This sums up to a theoretical maximum of 60-120 million isk / hour, which is more ISK than running the sites in a VNI. However, these conditions will hardly ever be met. A more conservative scenario would be three sites per hour, with an average time of 10 minutes to finish a site, some warping between system to get to the proper locations, and some idle time while waiting for new sites. This results in a more realistic 18-36 mil isk / hour, which is still a great income for a new player in a 3 million isk Thrasher. This is actually very comparable to run sites in a VNI with around 35 mil ISK/hour.
Even if you just finish the sites by yourself, it is usually worth to bring a salvage boat later to collect the loot and salvage. A good strategy would be to drop an MTU when you start the site and leave it there for around 40 minutes. After that, all wrecks will be stacked around the MTU and you come back to salvage the site in about 5 minutes. This will add a nice bonus to your VNI ratting income without much effort.