@Mkikaden_Tiragen what is your position on moving “special salvage” (which is not actually salvage for rig manufacture) to loot — irrespective of CCP’s original intentions? You’ve already expressed interest in autoabandon.
I haven’t heard any bad arguments from either side in this thread. It’s been a good discussion. Like you said, there’s no right-or-wrong here, it seems to be more of a matter of weight.
I don’t really care how materials are made available. I dislike people acting like they have an innate entitlement to wrecks when that has functionally never been the case and justifying their complaints about a normal aspect of EVE by saying “but CCP made wrecks valuable now and shouldn’t keep the same mechanics”.
That’s a really good point 
This is basically it, yes, but there is more, and you did actually mention in another post what I think was key in CCP deciding to place the valuable stuff in the salvage instead of the loot there:
This is key. How do you create challenging PvE content while at the same time providing a way for new players to participate in some way? Well, giving them something they may do there doesn’t sound like a bad idea, does it? And yes, that may give them something to do and profit from at the expense of the player that created those wrecks, but this may actually have been another reason to do things that way…
But of course, for someone to realise CCP might actually have perfectly good reasons to make the conscious decision of placing the valuable stuff in the salvage instead of the loot there, he/she would have to consider the possibility that CCP developers did actually know what they were doing and had a good reason to do things the way they did in the first place…
Which brings us back to what you said was my point. Did you see any of the players here pretending salvage shouldn’t be free for all to even consider the possibility that CCP might have done what they did for some good reason, and then wondering what that reason could be?
Of course not. They’re too self-centered for that. They only care that salvage being free for all makes things more cumbersome for them, and that was enough for them to jump to the conclusion that CCP didn’t fully understand the implications of what they did…
Instead of wondering what they could be missing, they assumed they weren’t missing anything and that they know better than CCP how things should be, and hence, that we need some thread to discuss, not why things are the way they are, but rather how they should be changed so they are the way they want them to be…
I do wonder. It seems strange that they would upend the loot/salvage balance so much. At the same time, having low bounties and a bunch of metal scraps as loot doesn’t seem to be interfering with getting a huge turnout for the invasion systems. I don’t know why they did it. I don’t know if the events are successful in spite of their decision or because of it. But, CCP is doing something right with the Triglavians.
When you instantly label people as self centred you blind yourself to any reasons they might have. Just because CCP made it one way doesn’t mean there aren’t good reason to do it another way.
I don’t claim or pretend to know why they’re doing everything they’re doing. Actually, I’m pretty sure they don’t fully know in advance what the consequences of their decisions will be either. Too many variables, too much unpredictable player behaviour. They’re probably throwing ideas out there and trying things that they may have to adjust later.
This doesn’t make sense to me. How am I blinding myself to anything for labelling people self-centred? I’m not saying those people don’t have any reasons. What I’m saying is that those reasons are self-centred, and you just have to see what the OP said to illustrate this…
This is correct, but I fail to see how does it invalidate anything I said…
I understand being frustrated at losing out on potential income. However, before storming into the forums demanding CCP revisit a mechanic, it is appropriate for players to determine if they already have a solution possible. Bring in a salvager of your (general) own who does not fire any shots, which means they are excluded from payouts for the content - players who deal zero DPS/reps aren’t considered ‘present’ for payout purposes, according to everything I can find. Yes, you (general) may still have competition from ninja looters/salvagers, but at least you will have made an effort to safeguard your stuff instead of asking CCP to do it for you.
Here is another issue.
Consider this. I got nailed in a High Sec System in a Data Site. My capsule ejected. But I fled zone, but I left a wreck behind.
Unless you snap “save location” your wreck will end in the ether. I can’t recover my ship wreck although my D-Radar shows my wreck + all the goodies still there.
Alot of players and NPC don’t clean up after themselves either in salvaging or looting. Mostly because the bounty system gets to a certain point where you really don’t have to loot.
So that is the other problem, leaving tons of junk and then not doing anything about it.
Also alot of players also just roll into a site vape all the ships, they do nothing about the Structures, and those same structures can have much more valuable items within!
If you leave it out, its fair game. Considering you are now for 14 minutes and resetting your suspect timer every time you grab something that isn’t yours. And you are flag marked as well.
But, the mechanics of sites must be addressed. If one were to operate in a site. And then wait till they clear it, they literally can be in a pocket of space with no one the wiser and they can loot and salvage at will. Even camp there until the timer wears off. But at the same time, one should be able to recover items without having to go through the knee jerk “save location” rule.
I think Salvage as a player “career” should be useful. Especially if you couple that with a bounty/insurance repayment. Or contract to recover ships and their materials for a payout. It would allow you to differentiate between the pirates and the salvagers.
If you don’t leave system, the site will still show up on your probe scanner. Once you’re safe, click on the result and save it then.
Or, you know, probe it down again. You’ve done it once already after all.
And if you’re running a mission that doesn’t shoot pods (which is almost all of them) learn to no warp off if you lose your ship. That gives you a moment to bookmark your location and then come back to recover your items after you despawn the mission (assuming you don’t come back in another ship to complete it).
Many of the loot-dropping structures in missions can be shot by anyone. If you come across a cleared out mission site and have your safety set to green, you can attempt to shoot those structures with zero consequences. If they drop loot, that loot will belong to you because you destroyed the structure, not the person running the mission.
This is by design. If the owner truly doesn’t want to come back to the site, any interested third party has free reign to pick the leftovers clean. Yes, you’ll go suspect if you take any items that don’t belong to you, but if you do things in an orderly manner and use a fast ship, you can minimize your vulnerability. Alternatively, you can come back and loot in a PvP-fit ship with the hopes that the site owner, or any other interested third parties, stumble on you and want to take a shot at you.
It already is. It’s just not as straightforward an affair as, say, running missions or mining ore. If you hang around busy mission running hubs in ship outfit with scan probes, you can make all kinds of ISK (or maybe find some fun fights if that’s that you’re into).
Out of curiosity, how exactly would you go about “actively protecting” your salvage?
Salvage faster or with a friend, bumping (he can’t tractor the wreck), suicide gank or wardec.
Run salvage drones while clearing the room. Have a friend salvage while clearing the room. Hire someone to salvage while clearing the room. Dedicate a single high slot to a salvage beam and salvage your wrecks while clearing the room.
Then it wouldn’t be salvage, it’d be loot.
I think it depends on the content? For example pretty sure if you are in a fleet together running missions the mission payouts are split regardless of who does the damage?
That comment was specific to the Invasion content where the argument was made that bringing in a salvage-dedicated player would reduce the payout for the players actually clearing the room, which appears to be incorrect (that is, unlike FOBs, simply being in the room without engaging in either dealing damage or working as Logi does not appear to grant a payout).
NPC mission reward sharing is controlled by the person who pulled the mission and is entirely unrelated to engagement with the content itself.
That’s fair. I haven’t had the pleasure of trying invasion content yet so I’m not up on the payout mechanics.
Suicide ganking your shiny PvE ship is not a practical option. That is more likely to give the ninja salvager one more wreck, plus your ship’s loot. It also gives them a kill right to issue against you and lowers your sec status. In what universe is that a legitimate answer? And a wardec is not at all practical nor is it always possible. It could very well be that the offenders were just there at an opportune time and you never see those particular ninjas again. Starting a war with their entire corporation/alliance seems rash and counterproductive. If wardecced, those same ninja salvagers and all their alliance could then enter sites and attack you while you are clearing the sites. Furthermore, it’s not up to you as an individual corp member to make wardecs anyway. Do you not know how wardecs work? And if you or they are in a NPC corp, 1-man tax evasion corp or a small corp with no structures you wouldn’t even qualify for wardecs. And “salvaging faster” while you are in the middle of clearing a site is not at all reasonable. Are these even serious replies? Do you even EVE?
Run salvage drones requires A.) You have a drone bay, and B.) You don’t rely on your drone bandwidth for combat drone DPS. Furthermore, salvage drones are notoriously inefficient if left to their own devices and will easily be out competed by a player fit for salvaging.
Have another person sacrifice their time to clean up behind you? Possible for some. Not so much others. And who is going to do this for nothing on a continuous basis? In reality we’re going to have to roll the two ideas into one: Pay someone else to salvage the field while you fight? How much would that run you? Especially to be run into an active Triglavian battle field. Can you list some of these salvaging services for everyone to look over? Overall, it has the same issue as the last in that you’re not actually protecting the salvage from the offending ninja. It’s essentially another way of saying, “salvage faster.” You’re still looking at losing half the salvage, no?
Sacrificing a turret/launcher or utility spot to salvage your own wrecks, one at a time, while you are clearing a room? LOL! Sorry, I had to laugh at that one. Reducing your DPS and being limited to staying with 5km of wrecks? Are you even being serious here? Have you ever salvaged before, Mkikaden?
In closing,
I have a question for both of you. Would you be okay is there were no penalty to looting wrecks? The OP is just asking that the person in question becomes suspect flashy so that she can actually take action to actually protect the salvage in question. I feel like you two are just being contrarians for the sake of being contrarians. The only thing even close to reasonable is hiring someone to salvage. Everything else comes as ignorance or trolling.
I myself am a compulsive salvager. I will steal your wrecks if I find them and I have cleared sites of wrecks if I scan down a combat site and it’s been completed or is in process if the person does not responding if I ask if they plan to salvage. That being said, I personally would not want what the OP suggests. Not without some fundamental changes to how salvage rights work. Yet I understand her issue and her logic is sound. The distinguishing factor between “loot” and “salvage” is the mechanics behind how you get them into your cargo hold. But it’s all loot by definition. Salvage is no less a monetary reward for effort than modules… or scrap metal. In the scenario the OP brought up it IS the sole monetary incentive.
If all salvage turned blue after 5 minutes by default and the “owner” needed to manually click “Claim Salvage” or “Claim All Nearby Salvage” (in 100km range) to keep it yellow, then I would be more okay with what she proposes. But some people don’t salvage, but are just too lazy to “Abandon All Wrecks.” I don’t see why that salvage should go to waste. I also wouldn’t mind a “Claim Loot” command in which, if you didn’t claim the loot, it turned blue after 15 minutes. There are a lot of people who don’t loot as well. Even trash loot can become manufacturing material.
Then you don’t want the salvage that much do you?
And ganking is easy, risk free and guaranteed isk anyways, so i have no idea what you’re talking about.
Then you can’t want the salvage that much can you?
In any case, wardecs are cheap and one sided towards the aggressors. And so much so that he’ll quit the game the moment you initiate the dec, so i have no idea what you’re talking about.
Then you can’t want the salvage that much can you?
If you aren’t willing to modify the ship to salvage and shoot npc’s at the same time then you’ve already decided yourself it’s not worth slowing down one income stream for another and that it’s worth risking someone else take the wrecks.
You can’t have it both ways. Welcome to eve.
Your and the OP assumption is that wrecks are like loot. But they most certainly are NOT loot. They are like asteroids.
Your logic is upside down, pants on head arse backwards.
Wouldn’t cost me anything to pay someone else to salvage. Chances Are i’ll make more on reprocessing the salvage than what I’m paying them to salvage. When I would take new players specifically under my wing, Id get them a cheap dessie and let them salvage behind me in L4’s and Buy back the salvage.