The new Recycling Mechanic coming in 5.0

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I've been pondering this and I'm HOPING that it can be the update that implements a something who's omission has bugged me since launch. A missing feature that largely nerf's player-owned wharfs etc. when it comes to Player-owned ship upgrades...

When I go to an NPC Wharf and Remove items such as weapons, shields or deployable / consumable items, I get a credit refund. This is good. However, when I do the same on one of MY Wharfs I get NOTHING. I expected the component parts from a "recycled" bit of ship equipment to be refunded into the station's storage. I assumed the same happened with Faction-owned Wharfs to be honest, by selling them parts from ships (that I'd captured) I was effectively increasing their stock of components. I mean, they've PAID me for those components, why don't they keep them? That's economy-breaking in many respects as the components are not a "real" part of the economy if they just vanish.

My hope is that, with the addition of this new salvaging mechanic - about which which know relatively little of course - this aspect of the base game will be revised to work "properly". After all, resources should only really be lost if they're destroyed. How things should work, in my view, when considering a complete economic model is:

- A Factor manufactures a part
- That part if shipped to another factory to construct a more advanced component
- That component, combined with others, allows a Weapon to be built and fitted to a ship.
- That ship is captured by a Player.
- The player strips off the weapon at a Wharf, gaining credits.
- The Station gains *the component parts* of that weapon.
- The Station uses those components in the construction of something else.
- The economy is complete.

Even when it comes to selling an entire ship to a Wharf or Shipyard, stuff lost. Sure, the ship might be put into service - that's valid - but I think they generally vanish, aka jump to nowhere and despawn. That's a waste. No, what should happen, in my view, is one of the following:

- The player sold a complete ship, the Faction has a use for a vessel of that spec, so it gets added to a fleet.
- The player sold a ship missing weapons / shields, the Faction upgrades the ship before deploying it.
- The Faction is low on resources, it recycles the ship, gaining components.

When I own my own Wharf or Shipyard, I want the same. I want to gain the component parts back when I strip a ship at my wharf. Via a mod, I can recycle the entire ship - that's pretty useful - gaining most of the component parts back. However, I cannot just recycle parts of it. Say I capture an SCA ship with poor weapons, shields and engines. I *recycle* those parts, before fitting better ones. The recycled parts "pay" for much of the upgrade.

In my view the only thing that should be lost when it comes to recycling is the Energy Cell component. Plus, for balance the act of recycling should perhaps *consume* some energy.

For me, this would complete the economy. As it stands, there's very little reason for me to own my own Wharf any more, from an economic stand-point, as it just wastes too much. If I strip a ship and MY Wharf, I gain nothing. If I strip it at a Faction Wharf I gain credits, and they gain nothing. I know late-game the player is likely insanely wealthy and does not concern themselves with waste most likely, however, this is the hole in the economic model.

The recycling update gives me hope that this might come true. Like I said, there are Mods that allow full ships to be recycled in their entirety, though the return isn't 100% There's nothing in vanilla that does this. The mod however does not allow component parts to be returned into storage when items are removed however. It would be GREAT if the next update allowed for this.

What do people think? Does this black hole in the economic model bug you as much as it does me?

[LameFox]

It would be very silly if we could salvage dead ships but not intact ones wouldn't it, but I wouldn't actually be surprised. I've been hoping ever since this game released we'd be able to do this, and also—another big gap—steal the rest of the blueprints. It's like a system half made at this point and a pirate expansion seems like the perfect time to fix it.

Now, my German is way too bad to follow the interviews, so I hold out some small hope that these are things I've simply not been made aware of... but so far, I have not seen them in the summaries by people who understand it.

[Imperial Good]

I think the reason why the parts are not refunded is to prevent the player from flooding NPC ship building facilities with the wrong ratio of wares, rendering them inoperable. In order to support this additional logic would be needed to allow them to sell, or even eject into space, excess parts so their storages never block up. Likely doable but it is just another thing that needs to be done, which means something else would have to not be done to do it.

I also hope that some sort of player recycling is implemented at some stage beyond "shoot it up and recycle the scrap".

[Falcrack]

I think the reason why the parts are not refunded is to prevent the player from flooding NPC ship building facilities with the wrong ratio of wares, rendering them inoperable. In order to support this additional logic would be needed to allow them to sell, or even eject into space, excess parts so their storages never block up. Likely doable but it is just another thing that needs to be done, which means something else would have to not be done to do it.

I also hope that some sort of player recycling is implemented at some stage beyond "shoot it up and recycle the scrap".

But parts are refunded to NPC stations. Sell equipment at an NPC station, and half of the original wares used to construct it get put into the NPC storage. It's one of the ways I was able to overcome a critical advanced electronics shortage at NPC shipyards, by buying advanced satellites at equipment docks and unequipping them at shipyards.

[Scoob]

I think the reason why the parts are not refunded is to prevent the player from flooding NPC ship building facilities with the wrong ratio of wares, rendering them inoperable. In order to support this additional logic would be needed to allow them to sell, or even eject into space, excess parts so their storages never block up. Likely doable but it is just another thing that needs to be done, which means something else would have to not be done to do it.

I also hope that some sort of player recycling is implemented at some stage beyond "shoot it up and recycle the scrap".

But parts are refunded to NPC stations. Sell equipment at an NPC station, and half of the original wares used to construct it get put into the NPC storage. It's one of the ways I was able to overcome a critical advanced electronics shortage at NPC shipyards, by buying advanced satellites at equipment docks and unequipping them at shipyards.

Are you running mods? I explicitly checked for this on Faction stations after I saw my own stations were not refunded any materials. The numbers of components did not appear to increase on said Faction station after removing ship equipment etc. Perhaps something has changed since tested this?

Regarding filling up storage for unwanted components, have the game sell the excess, like it can be seen doing currently. If there are no buyers, just eject / destroy it to prevent issues. Personally, stations in my games are usually in need of stuff, which I expect would be very much the norm for most games.

[Imperial Good]

Selling ships should refund components to NPCs. However if they are full it then should refund nothing, or the ship waits until there is space? This was used to replace the old logic where such ships were despawned out of sight instead.

[grapedog]

Or just make it so that NPC shipyards don't buy ships if they are full.

Full shipyards won't accept ships, but recycling stations will, at a greatly reduced cost. So hold onto a ship till there is a space to sell it at a premium, or sell it for cheap and get something out of it.

This would hurt the people who just crank out ships at shipyards to sell to NPC stations, but that's an exploit and if it got patched out, i wouldn't care.