with lawgun farming and pie-rat crops being more and more common and somewhat easy to build up, it kind of makes hauling equipment from one place to another somewhat futile, given you can get n3s and lawguns "locally".

given salvaged items from such collection methods are acquired by exploding ships, i think it would make sense to introduce a certain randomness as to the fitness of these salvaged items.

actual dammage, speed, repeat rate, energy consumption and (for ammo-based weapons) actual ability to replenish could vary on a per-salvaged weapon basis, so to split the market of these items.

on one hand, you have prime items that come from stations and you have second-hand items from salvaged floating items.

ditto with power cells.

[stamp of approval]™

So, would the required license level be for an item's top stats, or be reduced for defective stats? Would the defectiveness be clearly evident before a transfer? I do not like this idea...

Would you be able to 'buff' the defective items to acquire the same quality, or at least one close to the original/prisiten items?

I don't like it, either.

Drop rate is now 10%.
Imagine killing 10 queens to get one hive positron and its defective.......
This idea could work only if drop rate gets higher.

Why? 10% seems too high to me...

i think 10% is high enough, even if we add the defects. think about it: the ship exploded.

as far as salvaged items are concerned, i would probably label them as such:

"salvaged [item name]"

eg: "salvaged heavy power cell".

as far as license requirements is concerned, i'm not sure. should one be able to use a non-defective salvaged item if he doesn't have the license? perhaps, given the seller is not an official source.

as far as "buffing" (and by that i assume you mean restoring) items, that would probably be nice too. in a station, you could pay to "refurbish" a salvaged item and make it "like new". this would probably enforce license requirements though.

so:

- anyone could use any salvaged item even if under-licensed
- salvaged items wouldn't have guaranteed fitness (what should be the odds? 50%?)
- salvaged items could be "refurbished" in stations for a fee (30% their original cost?)
- refurbished items would require the same licenses as their new equivalent

edit:
oh man that would fit so well with the space hobo idea: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14161

Approved