The Primer Itself
This post acts as a primer for the topic of shipyards and what it is they do, and what you can reasonably expect from them. It is not a definitive guide, for that, you need to ‘use’ the shipyard and glean your own information from experience.
So what is the Settlement shipyard?
Firstly, although it should be obvious, these can only be found on Settlements. Level Five and above can place these on a 2-Year contract.
The shipyard is a Ship Salvage Yard, and as such is capable of breaking ships back into base resources.
There are limits on the types of ships, for instance, a shipyard (at this time) will NOT salvage ships over 400,000,000 in value, nor will it salvage Shuttles or Player Made ships. This still leaves a hell of a lot of ships that can be salvaged.
Why do we need one?
The shipyard has come into existence for a couple of reasons, one obvious, the other more subtle. Since we added the Universal Hangar and allowed players to store ships, we have seen a rapid rise in the number of ships ‘stashed away’. At present, the UHL holds well in excess of 200 ships that have not been flown in many, months. These ships are likely ones you purchased at a point in your career and no longer need and have had no luck trying to sell on the UHL marketplace.
These ships have a base resale value, and no doubt you’re not willing to let them go for that low amount of credits. After all making credits aren’t that hard. Locating resources is somewhat harder 
So the second reason for them enters the discussion – ships into resources.
So how does this all work?
The process is simple, the methods behind it are fiendishly complicated, so I will explain in as simple terms as possible
In essence, the shipyard takes 2 passes over your ship. The majority of the work is done in the first pass. This is where they salvage the majority of the resources from your ship. The second pass is a more refined and selective pass and will reap extra resources based on certain factors.
Four things that affect your retrial percentage success when salvaging.
Stage 1 Salvaging is a global salvage and passes over every section of the ship (12 sections in total).
1: The shipyards own Settlement – Salvage Boost. This is set at 25% by default for newly placed shipyards, but the settlement owner can ramp that up in 5% increments with research. This acts as a base retrieval % for stage 1.
2: There is a certificate called ‘Standard Salvaging’ this has been in game since the certificates were first added and many of you have maxed out to level six. For each level of THIS certificate, you are given 5% towards stage 1.
Stage 2 salvaging is section based, so it will only attempt salvage if you have %’s in the relevant sections and miss out those you do not.
3: Those of you that have been working your profession as Ship salvagers will have noted you level up each of the twelve sections of a ship. EACH of these levels you attain in each section of a ship will give you a 0.5% boost for stage 2, to that section.
4: Lastly, stage two gives you bonuses to each of the 12 ship sections based of a new set of certificates that entered the game last week. There are 12 of them. They are all the low level types with minimal training times. For each level you gain, you will receive 2% towards that section’s salvage.
How Quick is this?
Well, it wouldn’t be Core-Exiles if there wasn’t a catch You can think of Ship Salvaging in the same way SMC and SBMC’s ‘cook’ Player made ships and Star-base Hubs. So the shipyard takes REAL TIME to salvage your ship. The time is related to the size/cost of the ship. We will introduce player boosters later to help increase the speed, but this will be after a period of monitoring.
So What’s the process?
You enter the shipyard. The yard will search the GALAXY for you for any ships that meet the criteria. If none are found, it will inform you. If there are any ships in your Universal Hangars that meet the yard’s criteria, it will offer them for salvage. If the ship is not local, it will have it auto-piloted for you. (See, I can be nice sometimes)
You will then be taken to a screen that displays the Salvage Data. This includes things like the Resale Value of the ship, the shipyards Settlement Salvage Boost and any % salvage abilities you bring to the table.
It’s important to note that the more you raise your own certificate and salvage levels, the far better your salvage attempts will turn out.
This screen will also show the Time it is calculated for the salvage process to take place. You might find it takes a few minutes more or less as this is a rough ETA, but you are sent a PM once the process is complete. Plus, you can return to the office at any time to check the ETA.
Having selected a ship and started the process, all that’s left is to wait for it to complete.
Can I run more than one at a Time?
At this time no, I have decided I will wait and see if the light dawns and a certain activity begins to take place, before I remove any ‘limits’.
Can someone salvage my ships for me?
Sure, simply sell them the ship and ask them to salvage it for you if their skills are better. But make it is someone you trust
How do I get my hands on the resources?
Once the process has completed you will be sent a PM informing you of this and reminding you WHERE in case you forgot it took place Visit the same shipyard, and you will be displayed your resources waiting to be collected. You can review them at this stage (I suggest you do) then you can transfer them ALL to the local Commercial Store. There is a single button click to transfer resources.
How long do they stay there?
Once a Salvage process has completed, the resources will remain in the shipyards store for 30 days. After that they will be moved to the Settlement owner’s private commercial store and you will lose them. There will be NO warning. 30 days in our eyes is more than enough time to simply visit and press one button.
What’s in this for Settlement owners?
You mean beside the kudos of owning a shipyard Well you will see from the info on the shipyard (in your contract list) that they offer a 5% income for all ships processed through the yard. That’s 5% of the ships resale value. This is stamped into your Settlement logs and also displays as an income once the shipyard is active in your commercial view. You get a flat 25% boost to salvage retrieval when the shipyard is placed and can increase this via research.
Is there a limit on the type of Ships I can Salvage?
Currently, we have a limiter of ships with a resale value of 400,000,000. Anything below that value should be able to be salvaged using this process. Anything above that you may find, the Shipyard will not display or accept the ship or salvaging.
A Personal Note: For those of you thinking, hmmm this sounds interesting, but those %’s sound really low. I would suggest ‘try it’. You likely still have a low level Marauder left in your UHL, or something comparable. Hand it over to the skilled technicians at the Salvage yard and see what happens. What have you got to loose?
As stated at the beginning of this post, this is a Primer. For the real gritty details, you will need to use the shipyard and compare notes with fellow captains.
Lastly, I’m likely to add more to this one over time. I know there were some ‘guesses’ as to its use when the primer was placed, and some of your ideas were not far off base when it comes to ‘eventual’ use of the shipyard. But for now, it is presented ‘as is’.