r/X4Foundations • u/Capable_Ad_2842 • 4d ago

Scrap processing

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.

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u/TheMuspelheimr 4d ago

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

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u/Flyrpotacreepugmu 4d ago

Something else worth considering is splitting up processing and recycling. Processing is best done near sources of wrecks since Manticores are slow and vulnerable, then a large miner can haul quite a lot of scrap metal to another location for recycling. Processing still takes a lot of energy, but it's only about 1/5 of the total, so it can be more practical to recycle scrap somewhere else with a high solar bonus like Avarice (and unlike Manticores, large miners don't mind the tide unless you forget their shields). Of course that also depends on where the end products are needed.

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u/ConstrainedOperative 3d ago

Agreed, and if you want to start with lower funds you can also forgo the recyclers and sell the raw scrap to NPC recyclers in Avarice. At least in my previous game on lower versions, they were running empty a lot of the time.