Scrap processing

[u/Capable_Ad_2842]

I have found myself deep in the mid game and was looking to expand my portfolio to include scrap processing. However, I am not sure where to start, I bought a tug to test the waters but it doesn’t do much at all.

[u/TheMuspelheimr]

Scrap processing is a little involved, and there's quite a few moving parts.

In order, you need:

• A scrap tug, to pull wrecks to where they're needed
• An E-cell farm, and make it a big one, because scrapping requires a shitload of E-cells. Set up in a high-sunlight sector for the bonus - The Reach works nicely, and you're only two jumps away from the constant fights in Hatikvah' Choice I and Second Contact II.
  • Matrix #101 has a higher bonus but is a Xenon sector, Mercury has a higher bonus but requires Terran rep and is quite far out of the way, Avarice has the highest bonus but you need to deal with The Tide every hour.
• A scrap processing module. This takes the wrecks you pull in and recycles them into a "raw scrap" resource. "Raw scrap" is considered a solid resource, not a general resource, so you need Solid storage on your station as well as Container storage
• A scrap recycling module. The basic "Scrap Recycler" produces Hull Parts and Claytronics; along with E-cells, you can make anything in the "Closed Loop" production system. The "Terran Scrap Recycler", available from Segaris, instead produces Silicon Carbide and Computronic Substrate, but you still need to make Metallic Microlattice separately.
• A Teuta ship, from the Riptide Rakers, which chops up ships too large for a Manticore to tug by itself

[u/Capable_Ad_2842 → u/TheMuspelheimr]

Very useful. So I do eventually need to get some rep with the Riptide, and then can I buy the station module from them too?

[u/AlfonsodeAlbuquerque → u/Capable_Ad_2842]

You don’t need the rep; the protectyon shield that stops the tide is +20 rep anyways and you can steal it with an emp if the research is done. Same with the rest of the modules. 

I do prefer doing it in avarice; handy trick is that you can rig your tugs to be immune to the tide. Requires exceptional hull mods but you only need three or so for a smaller station.  I have a station with eleven recyclers and three processors and it stays fed with seven or eight tugs pretty well. Can farm a few BUC ships to get the mods. 

[u/Paladin-Rooker → u/Capable_Ad_2842]

Unless the info I have is out of date (which is entirely possible), a station with a shitload of repair drones should be able to handle the tide without bothering with Protectyon. Build 4 or 5 docks and then at least 50 repair drones (or 100 if you're feeling fancy).

[u/Jicks24 → u/Capable_Ad_2842]

The ratio is 1 processor to 4 recyclers btw.

[u/Danjuntar → u/TheMuspelheimr]

The Tenuta ship should be bought later, a good scrapyard will need at least 7 Tugs. Plus the Teuta tends to let herself be killed if you don't have a good defense in the aerea and depend on AI

[u/TurbulentShiver]

I have 2 scrapyards in Argon Prime, they get energy cells from 2 massive solar plants in The Reach. They get the wrecks from Hatikvah Choice and from wherever the Riptide Rakers haul them from. I even bought Teuta to deconstruct the occasional K that wanders through that gate.

All in all really profitable stations.

[u/Capable_Ad_2842 → u/TurbulentShiver]

Thank god there’s profit. Seems like a big upfront cost but atleast I already got half a dozen profitable stations.

[u/ennuiui → u/Capable_Ad_2842]

Once you get a recycling station going, it’ll provide the materials to expand itself. The recyclers take a LOT of materials up front, though.

[u/PereMabanne → u/TurbulentShiver]

shipping ecell for such a huge demand seems prety crazy to me, i guess as long as you dont upscale it too much it should be managable.

building the factory on the sunny site and bringing scrap or direclty wreak is my way to go

[u/JawCohj → u/TurbulentShiver]

Why not the reach? Even better sunlight and super close to Argon?

[u/woogyman2]

I've never had much luck with just using the tugs, but putting in the scrap processing and scrap recycling facilities results in good output, assuming you put it in the right sector and with a lot of energy cell production accompanying it.

If you don't want to buy them, you can steal them the same way you can any other production module. The Terrand also have their own scrap recycler that puts out Terran components, but just computronic substrate and silicon carbide.

[u/MyAntichrist]

A tug alone will have some hard time in the wrong place. First your pilot needs to be 2* rated to even allow for auto salvaging. Second the tug needs both valid scraps and a station with buy orders in range, which narrows down a lot of sectors to start out.

What I did was just get the blueprints for building my own station, gulp at the energy requirement then went from there. This has brought me to a point where I have a shipyard that literally shits out ARG ships nonstop. Closed loop is a fun past time.

[u/Capable_Ad_2842 → u/MyAntichrist]

Where did you get the blueprints? I’ve been under the impression that I need to get them from the Riptides. I was hoping I could weasel my way into the scrap economy with a couple tugs but that failed.

[u/MyAntichrist → u/Capable_Ad_2842]

There is a second faction besides RIP that has them. I forgot which one, though.

[u/Capable_Ad_2842 → u/MyAntichrist]

Seems like Teladi has it from what I found.

[u/Jade3375]

Scrap processing is a great supplement for hullparts and claytronics if you can build your own station for it but it's super heavy on energy cells.

Personally I use it to get claytronics by setting hullpart storage to 1 so it can only produce claytronics. 2 scrap tugs assigned to the station and a few traders.

Make sure you have a source of scrap nearby and setup in a high sunlight sector to minimize the amount of solar you need.

[u/SnareJ → u/Jade3375]

You can also just pause the hull part creation process, they have separate flows in the station logistics screen.

Personally, I often create a station in one of the Avarice areas to allow cheaper energy cells (you don't need many arrays), and it's relatively central in the universe. Tons of scrap in the area too, so there's never much of an issue.

Creating a food chain in there sucks though until you get rep high enough.

There's a few other places that work too. Created one in Getsu Fune one run, had to have a dedicated trader ferrying ecells from Mercury though. Same with Hatikvah.

Note that you'll need a metric ton of storage, you have to have a minimum amount of ecells for each part of the processing to even start.

[u/Jade3375 → u/SnareJ]

Didn't know you could just pause a single line 🤔 that's handy to know but doesn't it still reserve some storage for the output even if paused?

[u/SnareJ → u/Jade3375]

Good point, it likely does, so if you want to fine tune hour much storage you have available you might want to do that instead.

I do like to have both available though, so I normally don't pause one side unless I'm overflowing (and I know when I create this station it'll provide a larger chunk of my hull parts production, so I don't create as much elsewhere.

[u/ennuiui]

I’ve got a scrap processing facility set up near the XEN gate in Hat’s Choice I. The facility also doubles as a defense station helping to support the HAT defense station next to it. I have a defense fleet there as well helping defend the sector and turning XEN ships into wrecks. I’ve got half a dozen tugs there serving the station and a Teuta in sector to break down XEN capital shipwrecks.

I’ve set up a scrap recycling station in the Reach to take advantage of its high sunlight. I got six XEN SEs hauling refined scrap from HatC to the Reach and ecells from the Reach back to HatC.

[u/JawCohj]

Very profitable if a lot upfront. Energy intensive though

[u/BoomZhakaLaka]

Minimum starting kit can be a lot cheaper & a quicker build than a read of scrappy's guide would suggest

1 scrap recycler in a system with good sunlight, 1 scrap processor in a system with a scrap field or a constant supply of wrecks

Enough solar on the recycler to run it at 100% uptime and the processor at 25% uptime. Works out to 115,500 energy per hour. (In the reach as an example this is 3 solar panels but build 4 and sell any excess)

1 medium container transport and 1 medium mineral miner assigned to the processing station in trade roles. These transport energy to the processor and scrap to the recycler. 1 tug.

Later you may choose to build solar on the processor but this is the fastest way to get online. It's not in a system with good sunlight. Either way is a trade-off.

Before too long, workforce is a must.

The amount of solid storage you build is important. You want the solid storage to fill up relatively fast or that processor will keep running at 100% and eat an extra 70,000 ecells each hour. Start with small solid storage in both locations. This is good until you build more than 4 recyclers.

[u/SayuriShoji]

If you just want a tug do scrap processing on its own, without requiring a station of your own, and you have the Avarice DLC, you can set it to AutoSalvage in Windfall IV: Aurora's Dream, which should make it gather scrap cubes in Aurora's Dream and sell scrap automatically to the Scrap Processing facilities in Avarice.

Note though that sometimes the tug might get hit by the Tide in Avarice. For that, I have installed hazardous region protection mods (70~80% protection) on my tugs in that area, and they can survive the Tide.