Salvage

Salvage is the collection and processing of ships, stations and other manufactured goods after they have been destroyed. Ships like the Reclaimer and the Vulture specialise in such a role; equipped with unmanned drones, tractor beams, and reclamation equipment to turn burnt-out husks into valuable materials.

The first iteration of gameplay has been implemented with Patch 3.18 including 'hull scraping' to sell material for profit and multitool repair. It can be obtained via salvage lasers on the Reclaimer and Vulture by activating the salvage mode or in FPS via the multitool. The Reclaimer can be manned with a second salvage turret, but also produces boxes of Recycled Material Composite (RMC) which must be stacked manually in the storage grid of the ship. The FPS Multitool can salvage small chunks and patch hull fissures.

Types of salvage operations

 * Hull scraping refers to the act of stripping away the outermost layer of a ship's fuselage and converting the material into RMC. Players may either use dedicated ships or personal tools for this task.
 * Reclamation refers to the act of removing still-useful components, materials, or cargo from a ship for refurbishment and resale.
 * Shipbreaking, sometimes referred to as "munching," refers to the act of breaking down a ship into smaller chunks, which are then fed into specialized equipment to break them down further. While not currently implemented in game, the Aegis Reclaimer will be capable of this function in a future update.