Star Citizen Salvaging Guide: Tools, Techniques, and Tips

Salvaging in Star Citizen can be a very satisfying gameplay loop, not to mention a fantastic way of earning credits in-game. However, getting started with it can be a little daunting. This blog post will run through what you need to know to start salvaging in the game, ranging from the tools of the trade, the types of salvaging, the intricacies of the different ships involved, as well as the options for hand salvage.

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Getting Started with Salvaging

So, let’s start by covering what you’ll need in order to get started with salvaging in Star Citizen. There are two broad categories here: hand salvaging and ship-based salvaging. For the former, you’ll need a multi-tool along with a Cambol Light SRT attachment. You may also want some canisters to store RMC. For ship-based salvaging, you’ll need either the Drake Vulture, a solo salvage ship, or the Aegis Reclaimer, a multi-crew salvage ship. Although with a lot of seat hopping, the Reclaimer can be used solo. Both of these ships are available for purchase in-game with Alpha UEC. As of patch 3.22, the Vulture is 1.2 million credits, and the Reclaimer is 15 million Alpha UEC, but these prices may increase in future patches.

Tools of the Trade

For ship-based mining, it’s also worth having a multi-tool with a tractor beam attachment. If you forgot one, you can craft one using the salvage ship terminals, but it’s just more expensive than bringing one with you. To get started, you’ll need something to salvage. You can come across derelict ships or salvage panels in the verse, destroy ships yourself to create salvage opportunities, or alternatively, take out a salvage contract.

Salvage Contracts

Many people choose to take the contract as one of the faster or more reliable ways to find a salvage target. Contracts in the general tab are the mainstay and generally fall into three categories: small, medium, and large salvage contracts. If it’s your first time out since the last mini-wipe, you may need to complete those small and medium-sized contracts first to build your reputation before moving on to the largest hulks. Contracts in the personal tab, as with many of the others, are a little more sketchy. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with taking those contracts, but you might have more of a timer attached before law enforcement pops along to see what’s going on.

Component Stripping

The first salvage mechanic is component stripping. This features in the guide before hull scraping for the simple reason that grabbing the valuable things from the hulk may be a top priority for many a salvager, especially since many wrecks are also carrying high-value cargo that can be carted off for sale too. Depending on the legality of said cargo, you may need to sell to a fence rather than a reputable retailer. For grabbing either cargo, weapons, or components from a hulk, you’ll need your handy multi-tool tractor beam. With a tractor beam in hand, left-click to pick up your target, whether it be a cargo box, weapon, or component. For the latter, you may see an orange arrow appear on the screen, which indicates the direction you need to move the tractor beam in order to detach the component. You then simply bring the item to your ship for storage, preferably somewhere safe. You can use the mouse wheel to control the distance of your tractor beam and hold the R key on your keyboard to rotate items for neat placement.

Storing and Selling Components

Cargo can snap to your cargo grid, indicated by a purple highlight, but weapons and components will not. Weapons sell to a weapon store planetside, and components would sell to a component store—basically, the places where you buy them are where you go to sell them. Some people choose to skip this step entirely. Ultimately, it’s not necessarily where the biggest money is, but you can make some decent sums by doing this, especially if you’ve got more than one person salvaging. Basically, it’s for you to decide whether you want to strip the carcass to the bone or if you prefer to focus on the meatiest parts.

Hull Scraping

The mainstay of salvage is the hull scraping mechanic. You fire a salvage beam from your ship, targeting the wreck, and basically scrape away the materials from the surface. This gives you recycled material composite, hereby referred to as RMC, which can be sold at most major TDD outposts. The UI is similar for both the Vulture and the Reclaimer, with the differences covered later in this post. Activating the scraper module fires a beam towards the surface of the target, and essentially this paints the target over time, stripping away the hull after a few seconds of firing the salvage beam and leaving a satisfying stripped wreck behind.

Salvage Beam Performance

To help you in painting beautiful patterns on the wrecks that you encounter, there are some cues that tell you how the salvage beam is performing. There’s a percentage on the HUD that gives you a feel for how much material is left where you’re currently pointed, with that percentage reducing as you scrape away the hull. You can also get a general feel for this by looking at the highlight around the section of the ship that you’re targeting, which starts out blue and green, indicating a high amount of salvage, reducing to yellow and eventually to red when a third or less salvage remains. Below that is a SCU indicator, which shows how much material is currently heading to your internal storage. This dial shows per salvage head but based on where the salvage head is currently pointing. So in the Vulture, you’ll see two, and in the Reclaimer, you’ll see just one. There’s also a range indicator to ensure that you’re firing your salvage beam within range of the target. Also on the HUD, you’ll see the indicator of the internal storage aboard, currently 13 SCU in the Vulture and 240 SCU in the Reclaimer. Once this fills to full, you’ll need to take some action to clear it.

Scraper Module Statistics

For each scraper module, you’ll also see three statistics: the diameter, speed, and efficiency. The diameter is how much hull is covered by the salvage beam, meaning with more diameter, you cover more of the hull with the spread. The speed is how quickly the beam works, and the efficiency is how much of the material you’ll recover. Think of it as like choosing the right tool for painting a room. You can do much more detailed and intricate things with a fine paintbrush, but you’d also be there for hours. You might prefer to use a big brush or even a paint roller to get the job done more quickly but accept that you might have gaps left behind. Generally, I tend to use the Arid module in the Vulture and swap between the Trawler and Abrade modules in the Reclaimer.

Scraping Efficiency

How much you choose to scrape the hull depends on your own choices about how much RMC you’d like to get and is inevitably a trade-off between efficiency and time, as well as how much you enjoy the gameplay loop. To me, it’s a satisfying experience, so I usually give a good once-over with hull scraping before moving to the next step. But for those looking to make the most money in as short a time as possible in patch 3.22, they often move right on to structural salvage.

Structural Salvage

Structural salvage is the biggest step in the salvage journey, which involves completely breaking up the hull into smaller chunks and then dissolving those chunks into construction materials, which can be sold on. Those CMS can be sold at slightly different places than the RMC but usually around the same areas. For example, the admin center terminal at Microtech rather than the TDD. There are two phases to structural salvage. The first is to use the fracture and disintegrate mode to break up the target into smaller chunks. In the Vulture, enter the mode by pressing Alt and W, or in the Reclaimer by entering the claw seat and pressing M. If you end up in the disintegration mode, just right-click to switch it back over to fracturing.

Fracturing and Disintegration

Once in fracturing mode, left-click to activate the fracture field. Hovering over the target, you should see a visible note on the UI to say it’s fracturing, as well as an indication of how many SCUs of construction materials are aboard. You need to be within range and facing the target to fracture it. Once fracturing is complete, you’ll see the target break up into smaller chunks, which is where you need to switch to the disintegration mode. That can be done with the right mouse button. This works in a similar way: left-click to activate the mode, and then you’ll see a visual indicator for how it’s progressing and an estimated yield. The slight difference here is you’ll also see a percentage indicated, which is the efficiency of your current position. You can improve this by moving to an optimal distance and facing the target better, and naturally, using shipborne tractor beams to help with that can be a real plus.

Internal Hopper Management

Whether you’re in the Vulture or the Reclaimer, eventually your internal hopper will be full, and you’ll need to empty it to make space and ultimately to generate the boxes you want to sell. The user interface is very similar in each ship. You head to the location of the hopper, select whether you want to eject RMC or CM, and then press to eject. That pushes out a box, which you can then move around and store as appropriate, and reduces the internal hopper storage by the appropriate amount. There’s a checkbox to auto-eject the next box, which can help if you’re stacking up multiple jobs.

The Vulture

The Vulture is designed as a solo platform, although to some extent it can work with a second player too if they’re happy to do some of the cargo juggling in the back and on the wreck itself. All of the salvage functions are controlled from the pilot seat, with the exception of emptying the hopper. It’s a very convenient experience for running salvage. There are two sets of salvage heads on the Vulture, one left and one right of the forks in the front of the ship. Right-clicking in salvage mode swaps between the two sets of heads. The default loadout equips the Cinch scraper modules on the first set and alternatively a tractor beam and an Abrade module on the second set. You can also disable or enable individual mining heads by pressing Alt and A or D, which can be very useful if you want to use or not use the tractor beam on the alternate loadout. My personal preferred Vulture loadout is two Arid modules. Most people will use gimbal mode in the Vulture to more easily aim both heads at the same spot. The Vulture salvage heads are capable of doing any job, but the fracturing and disintegration modes will not work on the biggest of ships, so if you’re struggling to break up a huge target, you’d need to use the Reclaimer for that. To switch between the fracturing and disintegration modes and the salvage mode in the Vulture, the hotkey is Alt and W, and then switching functions between modes is by right-clicking. The exit hopper is on the cargo deck and spits out one SCU boxes. There’s 12 SCU of storage available on the cargo grid, although judicious players can fit more boxes aboard by using the gangway space available.

The Reclaimer

The Reclaimer is designed as a multi-crew ship, and so the functions aboard are split into different stations across the ship. The pilot seat is separate from the salvage turrets, which are separate from the claw, which does the fracturing and disintegration. The stations can work together well with a coordinated team, especially as the salvage turrets incorporate an alternate tractor beam by default. There are two salvage turrets located on chairs behind the pilot’s chair on either side of the bridge. Enter the turret by powering up the station and then selecting “Enter Remote Turret.” The default loadout is the tractor module and the Trawler scraper module, which seems to work well for the Reclaimer. When using the tractor beam, it’s possible to change the distance to the target by using Alt and mouse wheel or to rotate it by using the R key. Larger targets may carry some momentum, so use those features carefully. The claw operator seat is located next to the pilot’s chair on the right side of the cockpit, and the claw is activated by sitting in the seat, powering up the station, and pressing M to start fracturing mode. Switch to disintegration mode by right-clicking. The tractor beam stations can move fractured sections of hull to an optimal position for the claw to disintegrate through careful teamwork. The exit hopper is right at the back of the ship on the salvage deck, some walk away from the bridge. There are two salvage hoppers on opposite sides of the room capable of ejecting RMC or CM crates but also at different sizes, ranging up to 16 SCU crates. These can be stored on the cargo grid either within the salvage room or down in the cargo hold. Alternatively, there are plenty of places aboard to store loose boxes for the brave, so it’s quite feasible to have considerable numbers of boxes stored aboard before heading back to sell up. It’s possible to operate the Reclaimer solo, which many players do in order to make use of the large contract capability. It just involves walking between stations during each stage of the salvage journey. It’s less efficient than multi-crewing the ship but arguably more effective than using a solo Vulture for the largest of contracts.

Hand Salvage

The final salvage option is hand salvage using a multi-tool. This is by far and away the rarest method as it’s just not on the same scale as the other methods, but it’s worth including here for completeness and to mention that RMC salvaged in this way can theoretically be used to patch up and repair hulls in-game. You need the multi-tool, Cambol Light SRT attachment, and some Cambol Light canisters for storing the RMC. Locate your salvage target, whip out the multi-tool, and once the UI goes green to indicate you’re in range, left-click to start salvaging. The hull scraping works similar to the ship-based system, and you’ll see an indicator on the green wheel to show you when you’re not grabbing any more materials. The laser automatically cuts out if your canister is full, at which point press R to reload an empty canister from your suit inventory. You might need to swap around full and empty canisters much as you would do ammunition magazines. Incidentally, you can switch to repair mode by pressing the B key if you’re one of the few people who wants to use that mode.

Hopefully, this has been a useful guide on the art of salvage in Star Citizen. If so, you might press that like button or share your experiences in the comments, especially if there’s anything you’d like to hear more about. If you’re not yet subscribed to the blog, clicking that whilst you’re there might be a wise move. But otherwise, and as always, thank you for reading.