New Salvaging Strategies for Big Payouts in Star Citizen! 5-10m aUEC / hr

As expected Bounty Cargo Salvage took a big ol' nerf with the latest patch, but in today's video we're going to be taking a look to see what returns you can still make out of it and also put together a quick guide for anyone looking at the new king of cash - reclaimer munching!
We're also going to think about how the 2 strategies could be combined to generate bumper profits!
My referral code for some extra starting cash: STAR-MY2H-6P9B
Come say hi on discord: / discord
If you'd like to fund my burrito habit: patreon.com/loudguns
Thank you to the wonderful Anorii for the awesome backing music - Nebula One!
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Channel Credits
01:08 - Is Bounty Salvage Dead?
06:16 - Reclaimer Hull Munching
12:56 - Combining Strategies
15:05 - Final Thoughts

[@Noizemaze]

One note from doing the solo Reclaimer Hammerhead cleaning. Lining up at the center turret of the hammerhead at 50m from the target usually works to keep from getting a negative modifier after the pieces bounce around and settle

[@LoudGuns]

Solid tip gets the pin! 👍

[@PremiereHell]

43 m is better +1 to 6%

[@6Brassman]

38m - 40m is my sweet spot. Spin around and make sure you're not on the side of the HH with the turret and you'll get 220 SCU + 6% every time. I also don't worry about trying to use the cargo elevator with the often questionable elevator code; just stack pyramids right there in the salvaging processing deck with 16 SCU containers all night long. My biggest haul so far in one Reclaimer was 9.6 million credits

[@Para0234]

I recommend 40m instead, it should allow you to get a +7/10% nearly every time.

[@DirteeBloo]

Also consider buy 'opening all doors' this will lower the elevator opening on the very lower back end of the ship. Most people don't even know this exists as there is no panel to open this from in or outside of the ship. lol We generally have the pilot open all doors and it opens without and issues. With that have been dropping 8 (slightly easier to handle) or 16 scu boxes down the hole at the end of the salvaging processing deck and they will fall out of the very lower end of the ship with this open. With a 2nd player in space tractor beaming they can quickly load boxes in a parked closely C2 as well and have extra payout above what the Reclaimer can hold. So in all you'll get the Reclaimer and C2 worth of sellables. Great for a 2 man crew. We also tested briefly with a Hull C but as was we know this was not good as selling with that ship is a nightmare with the Cargo selling area not initiating some times. Easy to attach quickly to the external cargo grid though but not at all fun to deal with after. We have preferred a C2 as the 2nd ship. We generally jump to either of the moons Daymar or Cellin and stop the jump in open space to avoid and interruptions and can quickly return to Yela for more Hammerheads after making and moving boxes. Great video keep up the great work!!!

[@LoudGuns]

That’s a really good tip 👍 I’m determined to do a Hull C for science again though!

[@Traumglanz]

@@LoudGuns Hmm, do 16 SCU containers even fit on the Hull C?

[@LoudGuns]

@@Traumglanz yeah all types do 👍

[@jimflagg4009]

Really good. Just one thing. When doing ERTs that are land based and not asteroids in space, then you can kill the primary target which the other ships follow until destroyed, and then you can lead them to space. They will follow you. Once you get the 3 ships to space then you can soft death them and the Reclaimer will have no issues munching them and you don't need to do fancy climbing when the ships land upside down.

[@mastertrader8144]

This is one of the best and most balanced real videos about making money in star citizen I watched since I started playing 3 weeks ago. Keeping it real ❤

[@Libertas_P77]

Solo salvaging illegal wrecks (Hammerheads) in the Reclaimer is pretty profitable. 3 Hammerheads with all stages skipping scraping takes an hour or so, and nets 4.5m UEC in pure profit, so I’m quite happy with that for now

[@LoudGuns]

Yeah you can easily use legal or illegal contracts as a good back up when the clean up is taken if soloing 👍

[@IDNeon357]

@@LoudGunsthe cleanup is just boring to me so I run out of Hurston where I'm constantly attacked by cops; I like running from the cops. But the mission can be used to know when a REC is using Yela; from there it's pretty easy to hunt it in an eclipse. The desire is mayhem and the hunt, not to profit. REC is so profitable that there's almost no reason to do any other game loop other than for fun. So to me; blasting someone with a torpedo is fun. I lost most of my ships in 3.2 update so I think I'll get the eclipse again and try hunting while CS5. If I stay max-stealth and constantly move at high speed orbiting the OMs I should catch a reclaimer salvaging and be able to blast them WHILE running a huge bounty on my head. This could be the most fun way to be a criminal lol :)

[@ADX77]

This is exactly what I've been doing lately.

[@frapino]

If you only print 16 scu boxes you can carry more. The limit seems to be 100boxes or close to that, more than hat and they start to dissapear, so choosing the larger boxes only you can get upto 10mil in the reclaimer.

[@danielw.3670]

Yes but whatson the cargo grid will not disappear after filling that up then switch to the 16 boxes

[@danielw.3670]

Yes but the cargo grid will not disappear only lose boxes will so what I do is fill up my cargo grids then only print the 16 boxes and never drop a water bottle you lose a 16 box by doing that keep the workplace clean and make sure your hopper is full going back to port

[@scrapyardwars]

Yes i liked that well said. Shared to my groups.

[@BesteWare]

You can also store in the salvage hold, just don't have a cargo grid - my personal best tos tore boxes in the reclaimer is over 1000 scu! ;)

[@LoudGuns]

We found a lot of boxes tended to disappear from down there, either entity count related or they were just falling out of the ship?

[@Milan-bc6hp]

very good video, thank you! 👍👍

[@BlakedaBull]

Fine kind work !

[@functiongarage]

You can definitely get closer to 2000 scu on the reclaimer but I understand the risk of respawning boxes. Good content!

[@LoudGuns]

Yeah, it tends to be that the despawn rate is a bit slower than the spawn rate - so you can push it further but beyond 1000 scu it seems to be a law of diminishing returns

[@mattp1337]

I almost prefer a loop after it's been nerfed. Too much money makes the game feel empty, which it is not. It could be fun to come up with some min-maxing strategies for game activities that make little or no money (or even cost money): touring dangerous sites, running a free taxi service, cleaning up bunker trash, etc.

[@OPRST5]

Does the Salvaging and Cargo Decks have cargo grids in your game? Only the processing deck has a cargo grid in my game.

[@GorZakaryan]

You can fit 8hamerhead worth of materials in reclaimer. So try to fill every corner in your ship.

[@Jambersome]

I like to pop the body, try to accept another Hammerhead mission, jump into the pilot seat and maneuver to the head. Then I run down to the hold and activate the 16 SCU auto eject and run back up to disintegrate the head. Then I move out into open space between the Crusader moons and stow everything. If you're lucky and the missions spawned, you can just repeat about 7 times to fill and maybe an 8th to fill the depot.

[@vkmicrov]

juicy munching. What are the returns on just normal salvage missions with the reclaimer though?

[@cobaltblue1975]

Thanks for that.

[@lolsmcfee]

Wow i never knew that the hammerhead cleanup could net so much

[@user-yy2oy3jq8i]

The most I’ve managed to fit on my reclaimer without having to stack boxes on each other is about 1200 scu, which sold for 7.2m. I could definitely fit more, I would just have to risk the buggyness with stacking loose crates.

[@Funkm4ster96]

if you need time to move boxes around, pick a L-station and stop your QT drive in a random place along the way. After you stop just put the reclaimer at full speed and now you basically have a pretty much no chance of being intercepted.

[@SarostonFaramon]

Quick question on the ERT cargo side, is there a way you aim for asteroid field missions, am I meant to take a non asteroid one and then abandon or is there a better way?

[@LoudGuns]

They’ll come up as “in the asteroids of Yela” or “at a weapons testing site” in Hurston. Sometimes I just wait and see if someone else takes it / do a VHRT instead of the ERT to fill the time. Sometimes I’ll just bed log on the ship and server hop (change region to ensure a different shard).

[@SarostonFaramon]

@@LoudGuns fair beans that's what I thought, just wanted to check I wasn't missing a trick

[@Caliiro]

I've found that as long as server FPS isn't too bad if you fill the cargo bay full, and only put the 2's in front/behind the 16's on the salvage processing level, you can line up your 16's and lay them flat? When a box is flat and stable on the ground it shifts out of 'slip/physics mode' and it's a lot more tolerant of boxes stacked neatly than boxes thrown haphazardly like that? Doing it this way it's possible to get like, 15x16 on the lower salvage deck, then you can do 8x16 on either side of the elevator, 6x16 on either side of the rear hatch, 4 on either side of each printer, and then 30x16 stacked all the way down the middle, and then another 4 16's up on top. Doing this comes out to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10.5 Million auec per run (Plus a full buffer for another 1.5 Million.)

[@TheBurnknight]

i can see the connie taurus beeing a fantasic ship to do the ert bit. easy to win erts with that ship, and it got a decent hold of 160 scu cargo, also very easy to load do to its cargo dropping down as it does

[@cyvan1750]

What happens to the cargo when you munch the ships? does it disappear or remain floating in space?

[@LoudGuns]

I think it treats it as a hard death so some cargo is lost but a % of it is still left floating in space 👍

[@StormEagle5]

I think it is more than one per server. I just finished up printing my boxes and come back to a hammerhead in the distance getting worked on by another Reclaimer. I check my missions available and there was another hammerhead contract ready for me.

[@Rockemup]

Realy appriciate this! I owe a random 2 mill for borrowing 1 mill. I feel like paying back 3 incl. interest. Big kudos for keeping the money making meandering meta managable for us lazy's.

[@LoudGuns]

Spent all of your narco money already Rocky?!?!

[@Rockemup]

i took some liberties buying stuff for daedalus. Alotta stuff.... then needed cash for more stuff for another event. asked global for a small loan of a million and someone took the risk. Feel obliged to repay. Good reason to get back into it.

[@jonathaneskew9878]

i got a 32 scu box of eggs and 2 2 scus day before yesterday so theyre still there

[@andrewfanner2245]

I've not done the sums carefully but at present it looks like the Reclaimer is the ship that pays for itself fastest in the game, by quite a wide margin. a well organised couple of hours will cover the cost of the basic ship The buffer size is a big bonus over the Vulture which I reckon is over three hours of solid graft, Leaves me speculating on what loop will be the next goldmine🙂

[@LoudGuns]

STV pays for itself in one hostile bunker? 😂

[@andrewfanner2245]

@@LoudGuns that's now so very much the case with the bunker gun changes!

[@thierrybo6304]

What's the fun for this game. Once you reach 100 millions, will you continue to use your reclaimer ? Or find a new "fun" game loop whatever will be its profitability?

[@LoudGuns]

@@thierrybo6304 my advice is to use loops like this when you need to get some bankroll for something else, then do the something else for pure enjoyment. Don’t spend your entire time just cranking out credits.

[@thierrybo6304]

@@LoudGuns yeah but what's annoying me is the amount of youtube videos about how fast you can make credits and the few ones about rp like citizen kate is doing.

[@arcakahn]

You don’t need to fill the cargo hold. Just print 16scu boxes and stack as high as you can in salvage processing area. 8x240 plus one in the filler is the sweet spot. Fast and reliable. Makes me 15M every time including mission payout 250kx9.

[@Thefuzzyspoons]

Pro tip... pay the 50K to get a C2 or A2. You can get the money back on cargo, and it fills a reclaimers hold in one shot. You can get almost the exact payout as the hammer heads just not the 250K for breaking it.

[@BerraLJ]

Glad someone can get into the game at least, all i get is Star citizen has crashed a few seconds after hitting launch :)

[@LoudGuns]

Oh damn that sucks - I had it back in 3.18 with my main logged out until the next patch.

[@BerraLJ]

@@LoudGuns was hoping 3,22a would help but nope, maybe it is my graphics drivers bur backing it down was a mess the last time at least for me.

[@tlove21]

Everywhere I go I can't sell my salvage. CIG should have buffed the amount needed by a lot and tie it to all explosion around the verse.

[@LoudGuns]

Interesting - I was wondering if this would become a problem. I didn’t have any issues but I did risk taking it to Grim Hex rather than some of the safer zones.

[@dimitripinto4747]

Get to one face of the HH and get as close as 45m. The claw will be at the closest.

[@CelticHen]

I think they need to increase illegal cargo back up not a lot but slightly especially since they are limiting how much each outpost can hop

[@ryuk5482]

where the + 11 % come from ?

[@danielw.3670]

Ya thats 7 to 8 hammer head mission fulling up reclaimer before despairing cargo and fill uo buffer befor you head to port to get that extra money and small cargo hold never put the 16 box only use 8 scu boxes down there

[@derdoofedoofmann8190]

Woo thats a nice c2 skin in the intro! What is it called?

[@TheOneAndOnlyRavnak]

Its called "Meridian". I'm not sure if its still on general sale though?

[@LoudGuns]

Yep it’s the meridian - they go on sale at pirate week and tbh I want them for every ship I have 😆

[@derdoofedoofmann8190]

It looks so good! Thank you guys

[@mcaddc]

Many bounties, ert have ships with zero cargo. For the most part, even Hercs have been harder to find. Have found many Carracks which are a pain to loot. But every now and then, you will find a larger amount of higher value cargo which will give you a decent payout.

[@hangglidingmontana6134]

why are they trying to balance shit like this in alpha anyways? couldnt a currency and ship wipe do the same thing? the better option would be to leave the larger 5-20 mil drops at a low (maybe sub 1 pct) chance in erts. the allure of the lottery ticket is what made it fun....stuff like this is exactly what makes me question the development thats actually taking place. 18 months that siege of orison has been in testing. what an absolute miserable time. its embarrassing.

[@chrictonj9503]

And here CIG tried to make RMC more attractive. Guess the aUEC/hour doesn't pan out.

[@LoudGuns]

Unfortunately not whatsoever, I would imagine a full salvage rework is likely when they tune up the structural element.

[@dred3569]

You can quickly chain spawn the C2/M2/HH legal salvage and not faff around with that with that waiting for 1 per server spawn junk. Only print 32scu, just smash it in every corner and don't worry about snapping on the grid. You waste way too much time messing about with stacking and finding the right snap and fit, it;s all about as much as you can and as fast as you can, dont bother being neat about it.

[@mastertrader8144]

You must have mods installed i can only print up to 16 scu

[@dred3569]

sorry, 16scu. but the concept still holds true. Time lost on waiting when their are faster options.@@mastertrader8144

[@DarkNightDreamer]

I'm going to be sad when CIG wipes us and I go back to being a poor Nomad driver again :(

[@LoudGuns]

Haha, the key is to know what your top purchases are for when things are more normal - take these opportunities to try a bit of everything then have a tight list for when you have to work harder for your money.

[@dimitripinto4747]

Your cargo on the grid is nice, but takes too long. You just need to print 16scu boxes and fill the processing area to the top. With a bit of practice you fit 5 HH easily, 6 if you’re a Tetris boss. 2hrs of game, and you make 10M

[@LoudGuns]

Yeah, the grid stuff is for the perfectionists out there 😂

[@earlster1]

The guy who slings cargo with me doesn't do tetris he does dangerous jenga and we have fitted 7HH worth on the proc deck and balcony with no issues as long as they are all 16's It seems more of a hastle to fill the other area of the ship although I know a few people who feel the need to do so very deeply and find the giant pile of boxes sloshing about somewhat off putting :)

[@Devilkill1337]

So grindy and so boring gameloops now, just bring back the old cargo hauling and let us get stupid rich and have fun again

[@nrjclar]

Everybody and their dog have a Reclaimer by now and they are all farming HH’s in the Yella belt… Even the pirates know that … ERT cargo farming has been nerfed, guess whats next …. CIG has already said there is likely to come a credit reset, so enjoy while it last

[@LoudGuns]

Been quite a long time since the last wipe tbf

[@nrjclar]

@@LoudGuns True, and it has been nice to be able to grind a bit of rep and credits, try out some of the bigger ships and new gameplay loops. But I would really wish that CIG would introduce some kind of “credit/hour guideline” so each size ship or gameplay loop complexity would have a their own income bracket, that would lessen the need to reset or wipes going forward. Also …. A bigger map, more space to spread out missions and lessen the stagnation of players competing for the same missions

[@LoudGuns]

@@nrjclar the whole economy needs to be developed further but I’d imagine that will come along with additional systems (which should address your other point).

[@BeatsMaster365]

still working?

[@BeatsMaster365]

can you redo the meta evaluation on risky salvage drug returns please

[@LoudGuns]

@@BeatsMaster365 This method with the claimer still works - tbh I've got so much money I'm focussing more on the enjoyable gameplay guides rn

[@jckaboom333]

LoL the Reclaimer need to be filled with pure 16SCU boxes. I did +1700SCU filling both cargo spaces. The main one to the ceiling (not the catwalk). No offence, but is stup** to make 2SCU boxes, even without entity limit is not worth the time. That little ones 1-2SCU should not be available in the reclaimer magic box generator.

[@LoudGuns]

So I could very well be wrong here but other people have told me that cargo correctly snapped to the grid doesn’t count towards the entity count (I think it’s actually calculating ground clutter). Beyond 1000 is definitely more than possible you just start losing so much that it’s arguably more efficient to go and drop off then come back out empty every 1000 or so.

[@jckaboom333]

@@LoudGuns you don lose anything unless the box is clipping in the floor and doing constant colisión with the others (jumpy). (Snap big boxes only, 3 each side I think) every HH you push roll 3-4 boxes down to the cargo hold, the rest you keep stacking on processing. after 8-10 hammerheads or so you go back and sell. easy +10M -12Min 2=3hrs SOLO. DONT bother scraping, just break and vacuum. 16SCU ONLY. MAKE a NICE STACK, don't be like the amazon drivers.

[@bubbles5171]

Why is your vjoy so high, you aren’t taking full advantage of your ship. You’re working 10 times more than you need to just to turn. Turn it down noob

[@LoudGuns]

Oof thou hath struck me a mortal blow with your harsh words.

[@nope007_]

Intros are lame bro. Please stop.

[@LoudGuns]

I include it to say thank you to my Patreon supporters who have made my gear and therefore my content a lot higher quality. Also I like it.

[@Schimyping]

Yall youtubers need to stop posting all our secrets on the web... CIG nerfs everything you guys make videos about and now salvaging is SO BAD!!!!

[@lottievixen]

this was the thing before ERTs even

[@Sacred421]

It's not a bug granting us a fortune. It's incentive from CIG to use these new features, find bugs and refine the mechanics. They do this on purpose. Just enjoy it lol. You will loose all your money eventually anyways.

[@jamess405]

Reclaimers on om points has been super easy piracy. Even managed to get someone on board while the owner went and filled it

[@LoudGuns]

Yeah, some people unfortunately don’t even take the smallest precautions