วันอังคารที่ 18 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Setting up your ship

Get the right fitting in at economical price is also a great deal of long term ISK making efficiency.

Before you begin, you should download Quickfit (http://www.elegance-corp.net/quickfit/). This little program lets you plan your setup without the need to buy a ship, equipment or learn the skills. It's an essential tool if you want to properly plan and achieve a maximum of efficiency.

The main areas you want to look at when designing your ship are damage per second (DPS - firepower), damage absorbtion (tanking ability), energy (how powerful your capacitor is), speed (ability to make a run), defense (all disruption abilities).

Take a good luck at the ship, its boni and description to get an idea what it is suited for. All ships are optimized for something and perform best at that task. Using it for multiple purposes or a different than the intended one, usually end you up with sub-optimal performance. An of course along with good isk price.

One of the biggest challenges will be to balance duration, damage output and armor. A chain is just as strong as its weakest link and the same goes for your ship setup. Over-doing it in one area, will always lead to a vulnerability at a different point. There are two choices you have there - Try to go a well balanced route and be rather self dependant, or rely on others to cover those weaknesses while over-optimizing your ship for a single purpose. Keep in mind that you fly what you CAN afford to lost, don't over spend your easy earned isk. They run out quicker than you think they do.

วันจันทร์ที่ 18 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2551

R&D Agents EVE Online

Ok, you’ve seen folks crowing about getting that latest T2 BPO and want to get your own cheap eve currency printing press, what do I do? How do these R&D agents work? Help!

Here is my:

“Research Agents Guide”

Ok, first thing you need is about 3 months of time to train the right skills. Yes, that’s correct, about 3 months from a standing start. No one said this was going to be easy, if it was easy everyone would do it...right?

Skillz you gotta have:

Science 5
Laboratory Operations 5
Research 5
Research Project Management (RPM) – 4 or 5 depending on your dedication

This is a “chirping” 40m skill; so don’t !@#$%^&* your pants when you go to buy it!

Special Science skill(s) depending on what type of research you want – 4 or 5

Some examples of these skills are: Race specific Starship Engineering, Nuclear Physics, Graviton Physics, Electronic Engineering, Electromagnetic Physics, Etc.

The good thing about training all these skillz is that you become an uber BPO research lab guy. You’ll be able to research up to 6 BPOs at one time! I’ve needed to use this uber skill absolutely zero times, but the lab rats will appreciate it!

Most of these skills are self-explanatory. Science 5 is required to train all of the special science skills, Lab Ops and Research are prerequisites for the Research Project Management skills. Good thing about most of these skills is that they are lvl 1 skills, so training up Science, Lab Ops, and Research goes quickly. RPM is an lvl 8 !@#$%^&* as well as costing 40m to buy. All the special science skills are lvl 5, so they are slow to train as well. Depending on what field(s) you want to study, you’ll need anywhere from a max of six or as few as one of these science skills.

You’re Agent gotta like yo !@#$%^&*:

Agent don’t like you, you get diddly squat. How to get your agent to like you? Run missions. Lots of missions, missions until you can’t stand them and then do a few more.

Ok, maybe not that bad, but you need to get your standing with one of the research corporations high enough to get decent level agents. At minimum you want to get high quality lvl 3 agents and preferably lvl 4 agents.

Before you start agent whoring, have a plan. Most research corporations have very few kill agents, so if you want to do kill missions, you’ll have to map out what agents you’ll be working for and know at what standing lvl you need to be to jump to each higher agent. Don’t spend time with an lvl 2 agent when you can be racking up standing faster with an lvl 3. If you don’t know how to find agent info, you’re a nOOb and should go back to playing in your ibis.

Don’t forget to train up your connection skill a few lvls, it’ll speed up getting the standing you need to get to the higher level agents!

A listing of research corps by race is in the table below.

Amarr
Carthum Conglomerate
Viziam
Khanid Innovations

Caldari
Ishukone Corporation
Kaalakiota Corporation
Lai Dai Corporation

Gallante
Creodron
Duvolle Laboratories
Roden Shipyards

Minmatar
Boundless Creation
Core Complexion
Thukker Mix

Picking your field to study

Ok, got the skillz, got the standing, now what the hell do u do…

Lets start some agents going! As soon as you have Science lvl 5 done you can start training a specific field to research and get one agent. As you train Research Project Management, you’ll be able to add an additional agent for each level, but no need to wait. Lets start cranking out some RP points!

First thing you’ll want to do is get the highest level agent available. If you are still working on standing with the research corp, but can access the lvl 3 R&D agents, then you can get that first agent. Getting research agents that are lvl 1 or 2 isn’t worth the time or effort since the RP amounts from these suck. And you didn’t train all the skillz and run these missions to suck...did you?

When you get ready to pick your field, its helpful to understand that the RPs are generated on a daily basis, so each day your total RPs will increase by a set amount. Maximizing this amount is the key to accumulating lots and lots of RPs, which gives you a better chance of the big score! Certain fields have a multiplier that will increase the RPs for that field. The Starship Engineering fields are a good example of this multiplier. This research field has a multiplier of 3x for all RPs generated. So all things being equal, you will get 3x more RPs from Starship Engineering research then from one of the other fields. Problem is, everyone gets this multiplier…so you’ve got no real advantage over others, but it looks nice to be racking up 300+ pts from one agent!

Certain fields also tend to attract more research then others. Everyone with 40 alts and his dog has starship engineering going, so the competition in this field is intense. Therefore the chances of getting a T2 ship BPO is similar to getting ice water in hell. Other fields get relatively little study, but have obviously a broader range of BPOs. Some of the BPOs from these other fields are major suckage, but you can also get that cargo expander II BPO and die rich…so don’t despair!

When you get ready to select a field, the best way is to look at the description in the info box for the research agent that you are interested in working with. This will have all the information regarding the different fields that agent can research as well as a handy list of the possible BPOs in each field. Note that there is a large amount of cross over, and that you can get the same BPO from different fields. You may also see certain fields which say “Nothing predictable”. This basically means that CCP isn’t giving out any BPOs in this field at this time. That doesn’t mean that there will not be BPOs released in this field in the future though, so not a bad idea to go ahead and research these fields. Other peeps will skip it when they see that message, allowing less competition, so don’t let that message put you off.

Not all agents have the same research fields, so if you want Electronic Engineering, then you’ll have to find one that does that field. You also should note that to use a Lvl 4 Agent to do research in a specific field (i.e. Electronic Engineering), will require you to have the science skill (i.e. Electronic Engineering) in that field trained to lvl 4. Similarly, with a lvl 3 agent you’ll need it trained to lvl 3. You’ll want to train the science skill up anyway to maximize your daily RP amount, so go for the lvl 4 agents even if it takes a few extra days to train the appropriate skillz. The RP difference is significant!

Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. So have a plan, look at the top agents that the research corp you are working for has, list out the fields each has available and then decide which ones you want to research. If you want a lvl 4 electronic engineering agent, don’t start a project in starship engineering with the only lvl 4 agent that offers electronic engineering because you where a !@#$%^&* and didn’t check!

Maximizing those RPs

Ok, I keep blabbing about getting lvl 3/4 agents, that lvl 1/2 agents suck, that you gotta train up the science skillz. Why? Simple. More RPs. That’s the name of this game, to get as many tickets in this lottery as possible!

Basically, the RPs that you will accumulate are based on only three factors. These being the effective quality of the agent, your science skill level, and the agent lvl.

The formula for calculating the RPs looks like this for the math geeks:

RP/day = Field multiplier*((1+(EQ of agent/100))*((My skill+Agent Lvl)^2))

Now you see why I be harping on yo !@#$%^&* about getting higher lvl agents? About training that science skillz higher? Yeah, that’s right…listen to me and get that uber l33t T2 eve online isk printing BPO!

Almost forgot, you can get more RPs one other way. If you are so inclined, you can run missions for your R&D agent. These missions can be run once per day and double the RPs for that day. This is better than getting reliable isk SK shop, and usually end up spending isk for idiotic crap that the mission requires. Basically you are the agent’s errand boy. Missions such as hauling garbage, fetching spiced wine, etc. are the norm for these missions. So if your only purpose in playing Eve is to be a R&D agent’s beotch, then have fun!

Congratulations

We got the skillz, we got the standings, we maximized our RPs now what? You sit and wait… Go join a pirate corp and kick some !@#$%^&*. Be a mother loving carebear. Agent whore if that’s your deal. But every day those RPs will continue to accrue, no further effort on your part.

Eventually, if you are very lucky, one day you’ll wake up and see an eve-mail in your box from one of your R&D agents. It’ll look like this:

2005.12.24 11:35
Our research has been fruitful. If you're interested, I believe we could have a patentable uber l33t, T2 cheap isk printing BPO. Contact me as soon as possible if you're interested.

Ok, once you’ve seen the mail, gotten back into your chair and stopped scaring the family pet, what do I do? Well, you got 7 days to get this puppy, or your agent gives it to someone else. So haul !@#$%^&* and go get the preciousssssss. If you happened to be on a vacation and don’t claim it within 7 days, sucks to be you, better luck next time! Ain’t no petition going to help you on this one either!

To claim the BPO you’ll have to go to the station where the agent resides, start a conversation and tell the beotch to give you your damn BPO. Be careful, the “I’m not interested” option is in close proximity to the give me my BPO option…now that would truly suck!

You’ll probably have to train a few skills to actually be able to manufacture/research the BPO, but riches await you!

FAQ

Why the hell do I need all these stinking science skillz, can’t I do the minimum and get by? Yes, you can do the minimum and get 1 research agent. If you Train Science 5 and then the Special Science skill of your choice, you will be able to get one agent. Suffice it to say, more agents = more chance of getting a BPO. If you go half-!@#$%^&*, don’t be surprised if you’re setting there a year from now wondering why you ain’t got !@#$%^&* for offers.

Which research corporation do I want? Hell, I don’t care and it doesn’t really matter! Basically it makes no difference for the majority of the BPOs since they all are given out across race boundaries. The only differences you’ll find is in the super-uber T2 ship BPOS. You want an Amarr T2 ship, then yo’!@#$%^&* had better be working for an Amarr Research Corporation, same with the other race specific ships.

But I want a Crow BPO; do I have to run Kaalakiota Corporation missions for that since the info says it was developed by Kaalakiota? O well, people in hell want ice water also…but to answer your question, no. Agents for any Caldari Research Corp will give out all Caldari Race T2 uber-isk printing ship BPOs.

Man, u suck, I want that Crow BPO bad, how can I get that uber l33t BPO?!?!
Truth hurts homeboy…sry. But hey, if you want to put all your eggs in one basket, go for it! You can start multiple research projects in the same field with different agents. You can only have one research project with each agent, but as many agents researching the same field as your skills will let you. So potentially, you could have 6 research agents, all doing Caldari Starship Engineering with maxed out Research Project Management. This also has the side benefit of only needing to train one specific science skill, Caldari Starship Engineering, saving a bit of time.

I can’t run Lvl 4 missions, I’m a wimpy carebear and no one will help me! Sucks to be you I guess. But don’t worry; we gotta plan that works for wimpy carebears. You don’t need to do lvl 4 missions to get the standing you need. Most times you’ll need a standing around 6.75 with the research corp to get the highest lvl 4 research agents. That’s doable by simply running missions for a decent quality lvl 3 agent. It’ll take a bit longer, but since you’ll probably be training skillz anyway, it’s no big deal. If you can’t run lvl 3 missions, you’re a nOOb and should go play in your Ibis.

I’m a deluxe carebear and I want one of those super uber Hulk BPOS, where do I get those? For those of you that like setting in a barge all day, you should seek phychiatric help. But, if you want one of these BPOs, you’ll have to go work for a Gallante research corporation, since Ore Syndicate is in bed with them. You’ll need a Gallante Starship Engineering agent and a lot of luck!

The T2 lottery is the only way to get a T2 BPO without spending a few billion isk. Time is money, so get going!

วันจันทร์ที่ 28 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2551

Mining in two different perspectives

There are 2 different types of EVE Online isk mining:
- quantity mining
- quality mining


quantity mining is mining in high sec sectors, where EVE Online NPCs are really easy to kill or where there are no rats or any pirates (players) who might kill u and steal ur ore.
there are no rats in 0.9 and 1.0 systems and normal rats are in 0.5 - 0.8 systems. i suggest mining omber in 0.5 and 0.6 systems if u wanna go quantity mining.

if u are a beginner u have to start with quantity mining, cause u arent strong enough to go to low sec, if u are a caldari i suggest u train ur skills until u can get a cormorant (a destroyer) and get 5 mining lasers on it.
and u should get an hauler, an badger mark 2 isnt bad for it and u dont need much skills for that...
if u got this 2 ships and a weapon on the cormorant to defend urself against rats, u fly to an asteroid belt with the cormorant and start mining
there. if u got the first ration of ore, u jettison it into space (rights click on the ore, then jettison). now ur ore is in a can next to u. open the cargo space of the can by right clicking on it and then "open cargo". from now on u drag n drop all the ore u mine and move it into the can.
but be careful, this cans disappear (implode or explode) after a bit more than 2 hours.
if u got loads of ore in the can, u fly back to the station and take ur hauler, f.ex. the badger and fly to the belt and get the ore out of the can into ur ship and bring it back to the station. repeat that until u got all ur ore in the station.

quality mining is mining in low sec space with security from 0.0 to 0.4
if u havent got a good ship with some weapons and/or drones i wouldnt go there cause else u'll be killed really fast in there.
but if u have a good ship and some weapons, u may mine there.
theres a bigger risk when mining coz of strong rats and player pirates, that can attack u in low sec space, coz there wont be punished for that as they are punished in high sec systems.
u need to have some weapons and in best case loads of drones to defend urself. get a place to mine far far away from the place, where u are when u warp to the belt, so that u have enough time to react when a pirate comes. put at least one warp core stabilizer in ur ship, that the enemy cannot prevent u from warping out that fast.

so, this tips have been for solo mining. if u go group mining, there are some things changed...
u have to be an hauler or a miner (or a defender against rats)
the miners mine ore and put it into a can, the hauler gets it back to the station and the defender destroys rats and pirates.

mining lasers are one thing u need to mine in eve. be carefully when choosing urs. ill give u some tips here to find a right one for u.
the XeCl Mining Laser is an expensive but good laser beam for mining in high sec. it has not that much cpu need and mines 47 ore units per minute.
the miner 2 mines 60 units per minute but also has an higher cpu need.
if u wanna go quality mining i would use deep core mining lasers to mine mercoxit or some other deep core ore.
if ure running a mining barge u should use strip miners, which are really fast in mining but mining barges are not that good for low sec, coz they cant defend themselves that good.

if u wanna mine successful u have to train ur EVE Online mining skills for isk, too.
they increase the amount of the ore u mine really well.

วันพุธที่ 23 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2551

Introduction to ISK: mining and trading

EVE Online Mining and Trading aren’t the most glamorous jobs, but everybody seems to do some. It takes time to learn the best routes and the best place to mine ore, and you’ll want to ask friends to help or visit one of the support sites to find good systems. If you are brave enough, you can go into low-security space and mine the rare ores, which you can make a LOT of EVE ISK and is rarely dull. The risk is a lot higher, however, and “noobs” are advised to take it slow at first, until the game is learnt. Miners should focus on getting an EVE Online ship with the largest cargo hold possible, and preferably 2 or more turret slots available on their ship that can use Mining lasers (more on that below). Traders also need a la rge cargo hold but can skip the turrets and focus on things that increase their speed or their cargo. For traders, time is money. EvE offers a very comprehensive system to set up player -to-player auctions, courier contracts (whereby you pick up and drop off supplies for a fee) and item exchanges. You can deal with other players this way, or you can purchase trade goods from the NPC (non-player-character) stations and sell them for profit elsewhere in the universe. Pretty straightforward, huh? But if you don't have time to do all of this, just head over to eve isk shop and buy some.

วันอังคารที่ 22 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2551

A guide to Salvage

A guide to Salvage

Part 1: Salvage
1.1: Salvage basics
1.2: Equipment
1.3: What is salvageable?
1.4: Salvage by race
1.5: Rigs by race
1.6: Resources
1.7: FAQ
1.8: Credits & Version


This is my first guide for Eve Online, and really for any game, though I have a few that I haven’t published yet for other games. The point of this is please bare with me as I work to improve this guide via additional information and helpful suggestions from others.

This guide is intended to help those who want to get into Salvaging as both a way of income, and as a means to produce rigs also will be of a lot of help for those who don't want to buy isk. It’s written for those who are new to the game, but not too new that they don’t have any idea what they’re doing. This guide assumes you are familiar with the basics on playing the game, and you know what the Overview is, how to target etc. If you need to know more information on those topics, then I suggest you look for some of the very excellent guides out there on those subjects. You can see more resources in my Other Resources section.
This guide is based on the Revelations (Kali I) release of Eve.

1.1 Salvage Basics


It’s not hard for a character to get into salvage as a career, or as something different to do. There can be decent money in it, and once the prices on the market settle down, there will be solid money in both the salvage materials and the rigs. Many players choose to do it as a side profession, as the skills required aren’t hard to acquire. Salvage doesn’t take a great deal of specialization and time to train like a career in mining would require, thus it is often referred to as a mini-profession.
To start, you’ll need to get the Salvage skill which has two requirements; Mechanic and Survey. Both are rank 1 skills. Mechanic is a basic core skill so it should be obtained by every character at some point in their life. Survey is generally more useful to those wishing to pursue scanning and exploring. In any case both skills need to be at level 3 in order to learn the Salvage skill.
The Salvage skill itself is a rank 3 skill, and it gives you a 5% chance to obtain salvage per cycle. The second thing you need to start salvaging is a Salvage Tackle I module. It’s fitted in a high slot.
Once you know the skill and have a ship equipped with a Salvage Tackle I module, you are ready to go.
In order to salvage you need a wreck to salvage from. Wrecks are nothing more than the remains of a ship that has been destroyed – either an NPC or player ship. When the ship is destroyed, it leaves behind one of two things – either a loot can (which is not salvageable) or a wreck.
There are two important rules to salvage which can’t be ignored;

1: You must have the wreck targeted.
2: You must be within 5,000 meters in order to activate your Salvage Tackle on the targeted wreck.

Once you find a suitable wreck to salvage, you’ve locked it and you’re within range – toggle your Salvage Tackle on to start the salvage process. Do not worry if you’re skill is low and it takes awhile, because the module will continue to work until it is successful. Therefore, the higher your skill, the faster salvaging will become. There are three possible messages that will display while salvaging – two success messages, and one failure message.
The two success messages are:
“Your Salvage attempt was successful.” You got something, check you’re cargo hold!
“Your salvage attempt was successful; unfortunately there was nothing to salvage.” You didn’t get anything. (note: This message is possibly obsolete because as of the Revelations 1.4 patch, a wreck will only spawn if there is salvage to be had, otherwise a standard loot can will appear.)
In either case, your module will shut off and the wreck will disappear from the overview and the field.
If you get the message “Your salvage attempt is unsuccessful.” Then you’re module failed to find anything during its cycle, however the module stays active and tries again. There is no need for you to re-activate it. You’ll notice that the wreck is also still viewable. If you no longer wish to salvage from the wreck at this point you can either shut of your module manually, un-target the wreck, or move out of range of the Salvage Tackle.
Something that might not be obvious to some is that you don’t have to be the one to create the wreck (by destroying the ship/object) in order to salvage from it. In other words, if someone else killed an NPC pirate then you can salvage from that wreck. As of Revelations 1.4, you no longer have to take the loot from a wreck first before salvaging. Salvaging a wreck flagged to another player is not considered stealing, so therefore you will not suffer any negative consequences from doing so.
Salvaging a wreck that contains loot will not destroy the loot. Instead, a can will appear in the wrecks' place with the loot inside, which means you don't have to loot first and get salvage later.
You can tell if a wreck is empty by it’s symbol both in the overview and the field. All wrecks have a symbol that looks like an upside-down triangle with a line running along the top of it. Think this |> but pointing down and more uniform. Wrecks that contain loot have a solid or ‘filled’ triangle, while wrecks that are empty have just an outline. Also, unless you’ve changed your overview settings, wrecks you have not ‘opened’ (meaning you have hit the open button to see what’s inside the wreck) will also appear as a white icon, while wrecks you have ‘opened’ will be grayed out. Objects only grey out once you de-select them (not the same as un-targeting them). In either case, they will still appear either full or empty depending on if they have loot or not. Thus, if you open a wreck within range but don’t take the loot it will then appear as a grayed out full triangle in your overview and field once you de-select it.
So where to find wrecks to salvage? The answers are many and varied.

1. EVE Online Ratting – You can simply go ratting then loot the wrecks afterwards. It should be noted that this can be dangerous in a low sec system, because salvaging takes time – time that a potential player pirate can use to scan you down and find which asteroid field you’re in. People often times leave their wrecks behind, so you could also go from field to field looking for wrecks. This is an even better option now that you no longer have to loot wrecks first. You can just hop from belt to belt salvaging wrecks that ratters leave behind. It still might be good to be polite though, as some ratters may want to come back and salvage later. Another option is to trail behind a buddy and salvage the wrecks he leaves for you.

2. EVE Online Missions – Combat missions can be a great source of salvage, especially if you are facing off against any of the NPC Pirate factions such as Sansha, Serpentis etc. Probably the easiest way is to join up with a friend or Corp. mate and salvage all the wrecks he leaves behind while ratting or mission running. Your friend can bookmark a wreck, complete the mission and then pass the bookmark to you. Then you can fly to the bookmarked location and salvage everything there. You can do the same after you’ve completed a mission, though I highly suggest having a dedicated salvage ship available for you to switch into once your mission is complete. Also, you’ll want to make sure and bookmark the wreck before completing the mission. Once you turn the mission in, the mission bookmark will disappear and you’ll only have your manually created bookmark to go on. Level 3 missions and above are where salvage really starts to pay off. If you have a good loot/salvage ship, you can clear a large level 3 mission of all it’s wrecks in just a few minutes. Some missions have so many ship wrecks afterwards though that it might take you a long time – this is why you really want a ship dedicated to looting and salvaging these missions.
If you are good at using scan probes to locate safe spots etc, then you could use them to locate the wrecks that mission runners leave behind. In any given system you are very likely to find wrecks that many mission runners simply don’t bother to loot when they are done with their missions. In the system I run around in, a simple glance at the scanner often reveals hundreds of wrecks left unclaimed – prime salvaging potential, and a good reason to learn how to scan these locations down.

3. EVE Online Complexes – Not much to say here, but if you have access or can get access to a complex, then these would also be a salvager’s wet dream. There are a few nuances to complexes that are beyond the scope of this guide, but the biggest one is that you will probably want to be with a group that is doing all the combat, while you stay far behind and salvage, and try not to agro anything.

4. EVE Online Exploring – I don’t have much info here yet, but there are ‘profession’ sites that can only be found by exploring. Some of these are salvage oriented, and essentially offer no-risk salvage opportunities provide you can find them. I will update once I get more information on what they contain.

1.2 Equipment

The most important piece of equipment you’ll need is a Salvage Tackle I module. Without it, you can’t salvage anything at all. It fits in a high slot and must be activated on a wreck in order to start the salvage process.

Ships

If you are going to be a dedicated Salvager, then you’ll probably want to get a ship that is dedicated for that purpose. You can use any ship to salvage in, but to do it quickly and efficiently you’ll want to have one that has a large number of high slots available to fit, a reasonable amount of low slots, and is fairly fast and agile. On that note, I make special mention of Destroyers because they are becoming very popular for use as salvage ships because of their 8 high slots, mobility and decent cargo holds. Destroyers are very cheep so it doesn’t take much money at all to get one plus they are fast. Because of their popularity, I think it won’t be long before CCP makes a t2 version that has extra bonuses for salvaging (That is just my opinion and not reflective of any hard evidence) – but until then T1 Destroyers are extremely efficient at mass salvaging and looting.
To fly Destroyers, you only have to know the Destroyer skill. There is not a race specific skill for each races destroyer like there is for Frigates, Cruisers, and Battleships.
Other good ships are Battlecruisers and Battleships because of their numerous high-slots – but these ships are much slower. Destroyers are you’re best option money wise.
The following stats are the base stats for each ship.

Caldari Destroyer
Name: Cormorant
Fitting: 8 highs, 4 mids, 1 low, 3 rig slots
Calibration: 400
Cargo: 450
Speed: 210
Cpu: 215
Powergrid: 55

Gallente Destroyer
Catalyst
Fitting: 8 highs, 2 mids, 3 lows, 3 rig slots
Calibration: 400
Cargo: 400 m3’s
Speed: 225 m/s
Cpu: 170
Powergrid: 60

Minmitar Destroyer
Name: Thrasher
Fitting: 8 highs, 3 mids, 2 lows, 3 rig slots
Calibration: 400
Cargo: 400 m3
Speed: 240 m/s
Cpu: 170
Powergrid: 70

Amarr Destroyer
Name: Coercer
Fitting: 8 highs, 1 mid, 4 lows, 3 rig slots
Calibration: 400
Cargo: 300 m3
Speed: 220 m/s
Cpu: 160
Powergrid: 75

Analysis: Looking at it from the viewpoint that you want low slots to fit cargo expanders, and at least 1 mid slot to fit a cap re-charger, the Gallente destroyer Catalyst is the ship of choice for looting/salvaging. The Amarr destroyer has more low slots, but only 1 mid – so you’re stuck deciding if you want extra speed by fitting either a mwd or ab for a speed boost, or a cap re-charger. Also, it has the lowest cargo hold of all the destroyers at 300. Cargo expanders work on a percentage, so the more initial cargo you have, the bigger boost you’ll get from an expander – thus the Catalyst wins with 2 mids and 3 lows.
The Thrasher comes in second place due to its decent mids, but it only has 2 lows. I’d avoid the Caldari destroyer for use as a looter/salvager – but it does have the largest cargo hold of all the destroyers, a point made rather moot because of its 1 low slot. Another advantage it has is 4 mids, so you can easily fit an AB or MWD and still have room for cap re-chargers.
All the destroyers have a high number of calibration points, and the standard 3 slots – so you should be able to fit just about any rig you want on there. Again, the Catalyst destroyer wins here because you can fill your rig slots with salvager rig rather than cargo or capacitor rigs.

Other Equipment

Another piece of equipment that is valuable for salvaging is the Tractor Beam. These modules aren’t too expensive, but they might be for new players as they run over 1 million isk per module. They also take a fair bit of training to use (Science 4), but they are completely worth the time it takes to use them. With it, you can lock on to a wreck and pull it towards your salvage ship at 500 m/s as long as the wreck is within 20 km’s from your current location. They are especially useful if you prefer using slow battlecruiser and battleships to salvage in. Even if the wreck doesn’t contain loot, you’ll still want it within range of your Salvage Tackle. Tractor Beams really go hand in hand with Salvaging, and you shouldn’t leave home without one.
Another piece of equipment that bares mentioning is a Capacitor re-charger. With Tractors and Salvage Tackle’s running constantly, the cap on a Destroyer is going to drain fairly quickly – so boosting the ships natural recharge rate will keep you moving.
Once you’re able to either make one or buy one, a Salvage rig will improve you’re chances of gaining salvage during a cycle of the Tackle by 10% – so it’s worth investing in these for you’re dedicated Salvage ship. With a maxed out Salvage skill and three Salvage rigs, you’ll have a 55% chance of getting salvage per cycle. That will substantially speed things up for you.
Cargo Expanders: When looting large missions, your cargo hold is likely to fill up fast, especially if you are also getting a lot of salvage. Like most modules, these come in various kinds (Cargo Expander I, Cargo Expander II etc.) and which ones you want to get are up to you.

1.3 What is Salvageable?

If a ship is salvageable, it leaves behind a wreck. Otherwise, it leaves behind a jettisoned container that contains loot if it dropped any (or nothing at all if it didn’t drop any loot and doesn’t contain salvage).
You can also use your scanner to see if there are any wrecks that others left behind. Set the distance so that it covers a large area and then look at what the scanner picked up. It will show something like “Sansha Medium Wreck” or “Serpentis small wreck” etc.
For convenience sake though, I’m listing the various npc pirate factions you can salvage from and what race they are usually associated with, so you know where to hunt to get specific salvage gear to make rigs. More on this below in the ‘salvage materials by race’ section. One interesting thing is that Amarr have two pirate factions; Sansha and Blood Raiders. You may wonder why, and this is most likely due to the reason that Amarr is separated into ruling provinces (Emperor family, Tash-Murkon, etc). So even though the two pirate factions use the same weapons, they both follow a different ideology and favor one technology over the other. That is a little more speculation that is usually found in guides, but it’s just my opinion. All that really matters to you is that you can find them both in Amarr space.

Blood Raiders – Amarr
Sansha – Amarr
Serpentis – Gallente
Gurista/Gisti - Caldari
Angel Cartel – Minmitar
Rogue Drones – not associated with a race.

All PC ships! (Yes, you can salvage a PC wreck! Standard rules apply though.)

Most other ships might be salvageable, but the salvage is minimum at best. The above are by far the best sources of salvage.
Whether a salvageable ship is going to actually drop salvage appears to be fairly random, however you can correctly assume that the bigger the wreck, the more salvage you’re going to get from it when it does drop it. I don’t have hard numbers on these, this is just based on observations and talking with various players.

Frigates/Destroyers –1-4 parts
Cruisers – 2-8 parts
Battleship – 3-16 parts.
Capital Ships – no idea. However, since the majority of these ships are operated by PC’s, you should be able to obtain salvage from them. If you have salvaged a Dreadnought or capital ship, please eve-mail me and let me know what you got from it.
(note: Future patches are going to have missions pitting players against npc carriers, dreadnaughts etc, so those ships will of course most likely drop salvage.)

1.4 Salvage Materials by Race

If you’re hunting for a specific piece of salvage, there are ships that have a much greater chance to drop a particular item over others. As you’re going to see, the salvage used in rigs co-insides with the specialty for that race – thus Caldari are shield and missile specialists, so it follows that you’ll have better luck finding salvage for shield and missile rigs from the pirate faction that prowls in Caldari space – The Gurista. This will also have an effect on the market as well, as these components are more likely to be cheaper where they are more plentiful. From a trading aspect, one could probably make a decent amount of money buying shield components and selling them where they are less common, however that is pure speculation on my part.
That being said, it is important to note that ALL BASIC (I.E. Broken components) salvage materials can drop from anything regardless of race. If you’re looking for something specific, then it’s still best to hunt the right npc’s though.
Most salvage items have a ‘broken’ component and a ‘whole’ component. You can tell a difference between the two not only by their name (Charred Micro Circuit as apposed to Micro Circuit), but also because the broken ones have an orangish explosion background in their graphic icon, while the whole ones have a bluish background. The broken components are primarily used in T1 rigs, while the perfect ones are used in T2 rig manufacturing. I have no hard data on where to consistently get the tech 2 rig components, as salvage is still fairly new, but there are some sources. Tech 2 components are more likely to be found by salvaging from tech 2 ships. They are also found from special faction rats that show up every now and then in belts and sometimes in missions. You’ll know them when you see them because instead of a Sansha overlord, they will be titled True Sansha Overlord or something like that.
I’ve made notes on certain categories if they were needed. Also, in parenthesis I’ve listed the most common source of the rig component. This doesn’t mean that component is exclusive to that npc, just that you’re more likely to find it from them.

Amarr Salvage Materials
Broken
Contaminated Nanite Compound (Sansha)
Defective Current Pump (Sansha 1st, Blood Raider 2nd)
Melted Capacitor Console – (Blood Raider)
Whole
Nanite Compound
Current Pump
Capacitor Console

Caldari Salvage Materials
Broken
Malfunctioning Shield Emitter (Gurista)
Scorched Telemetry Processor (Gurista)
Ward Console (Gurista)
Whole
Intact Shield Emitter
Telemetry Processor
Enhanced War Console

Gallente Salvage Materials
Broken
Damaged Artificial Neural Network (Serpentis 1st, Gurista’s 2nd)
Broken Drone Transceiver (Rogue Drones 1st, Serpentis 2nd)
Conductive Polymer (Serpentis)
Contaminated Lorentz Fluid (Serpentis)
Whole
Artificial Neural Network
Drone Transeiver
Lorentz Fluid

Minmitar Salvage Materials
Broken
Alloyed Tritanium Bar (Angel Cartel)
Smashed Trigger Unit (Angel Cartel)
Thruster Console (Angel Cartel)
Whole
Trigger Unit


Universal Salvage Materials
All circuits can be dropped by any wreck and in decent quantities.
Rogue Drones drop a lot of circuits for all races, as well as lots of Broken Drone Transceivers.
Broken
Burned Logic Circuit
Charred Micro Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Tangled Power Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit

Whole
Logic Circuit
Micro Circuit
Interface Circuit
Power Circuit

Unused Salvage Materials
As far as the data goes, the following salvage materials are currently unused by any of the rigs during manufacturing. Some of these parts might be used in T2 rig manufacturing, however I have no hard data on this at the moment since there are very few t2 rigs out there. Some of them aren’t even dropped by NPC faction wrecks, so if there is nothing behind it in parenthesis, I have no data on how to get them as of yet.
Metal Scraps (Guristas)
Armor Plates (Sansha)
Intact Armor Plates
Conductive Thermoplastic
Impetus Console
Power Conduit
Single-Crystal Super alloy I-Beam



1.5 Rigs by Race

As you may or may not know, each race has a specific specialty they are particularly good at. Gallente specialize in drones and hybrid weapons, Amarr in armor and energy weapons, Caldari at shield and missiles, and the Minmitar are good at Astronautic technology (modules dealing with cargo and speed boosting) and Projectile weaponry. Thus, it follows that rigs that fall under these specialties should fall under that race. If you don’t believe me, when you go to buy the blue prints for the rigs, you’ll notice that Drone and Hybrid are sold by CreoDrone – which is a Gallente research corporation. Astronautic and Projectile rig blueprints? Sold by Core Complexion which is a Minmitar research corporation.
Each rig category has three pieces of information. The first is parts needed. All rigs use three components to make the rig. Rather than list each specific rig and their requirements to build (which can change depending on your manufacturing skills and the amount of research done on the rigs), I’ve instead listed the components used in that category. Even though there may be 4 components listed, each rig will only ever need 3 of those components. Secondly, there is the Role the rig plays in improving your ship, and finally the drawback for using the rig, such as reduced speed.
Electronic and Electronic Superiority rigs are in a special section of their own because they are not attributed to any race. They need a lot of circuits, so you’d want to hunt Angel Cartel pirates, but you also need to find Minmitar Navy and Gallente wrecks to get the Damaged Artificial Neural Network parts.

*Amarr Rigs*
Armor
Parts Needed:
Charred Micro Circuit
Contaminated Nanite Compound
Fried Interface Circuit
Role: Armor Improvements, Salvaging improvements
Drawback: Reduced Speed

Energy Weapon
Parts Needed:
Charred Micro Circuit
Defective Current Pump
Fried Interface Circuit
Role: Improvements to Energy Weapons
Drawback: Energy Weapons need more powergrid to fit

Energy Grid
Parts Needed:
Burned Logic Circuit
Tangled Power Conduit
Tripped Power Circuit
Melted Capacitor Console
Fried Interface Circuit
Role: Improvements to Capacitor, Powergrid
Drawback: None

*Caldari Rigs*
Missile Launcher
Parts Needed:
Burned Logic Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit
Scorched Telemetry Processor
Role: Improvements to missiles and launchers
Drawback: Launchers need more CPU to fit
Shield
Parts Needed:
Charred Micro Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Burned Logic Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit
Ward Console
Malfunctioning Shield Emitter
Role: Improvements to Shields
Drawback: Increased Signature Radius

*Gallente Rigs*
Drone
Parts Needed:
Burned Logic Circuit
Charred Micro Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit
Broken Drone Transceiver
Role: Upgrades for all Drones
Drawback: Reduces ships available CPU

Hybrid Weapon
Parts Needed:
Charred Micro Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Contaminated Lorentz Fluid
Role: Improvements to Hybrid Weapons
Drawback: Hyrbid Weapons need more Powergrid to fit

*Minmitar Rigs*
Astronautic
Parts Needed:
Burned Logic Circuit
Charred Micro Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit
Thruster Console
Alloyed Tritanium Bar
Role: Improved speed and agility, improvements to AB and MWD use, Cargo capacity increase
Drawback: Lowers Armor Hit Points

Projectile Weapon
Parts Needed:
Charred Micro Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Smashed Trigger Unit
Role: Improvements to Projectile Weapons
Drawback: Projectile Weapons need more Powergrid to fit

*Electronic Rigs*
Notes: The parts needed can be mostly found with Serpentis and Gurista (Gallenti and Caldari race respectively) rats.
Parts Needed:
Tripped Power Circuit
Fried Interface Circuit
Charred Micro Circuit
Conductive polymer
Damaged Artificial Neural Network
Role: Improvements to hacking, archaeology, & scanning. Reduction of CPU and Capacitor requirements for Electronic Modules and ECM
Drawback: None

*Electronic Superiority Rigs*
Notes: The parts needed can be mostly found with Serpentis and Gurista (Gallenti and Caldari race respectively) rats.
Parts Needed:
Fried Interface Circuit
Tripped Power Circuit
Charred Micro Circuit
Burned Logic Circuit
Damaged Artificial Neural Network
Role: Improvements to ECM Modules. Improvements to ships sensors, targeting, & tracking
Drawback: Lowers Shield Hit Points

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