Debris Fields
Destroyed ships leave recoverable debris at their combat coordinates. Both sides' ship losses contribute. The field is shared salvage, not property reserved for the attacker or defender.
Resource recovery
Galaxy settings control the resource percentages. The standard defaults are:
| Resource | Ship cost recovered |
|---|---|
| Metal | 70% |
| Crystal | 40% |
| Deuterium | 10% |
At those rates, a ship costing 10,000 metal, 6,000 crystal and 2,000 deuterium creates 7,000 metal, 2,400 crystal and 200 deuterium before automatic salvage and decay. Use your actual battle report and current field value for a planned collection.
Defenses do not enter the normal ship debris field. Their recovered resources settle separately: surviving attacker cargo may take them after a victory, and uncollected recovery remains with the defender. Ordinary defense rebuild rolls are also separate; missile destruction does not receive the normal rebuild.
Decay
At the standard 1% loss every 10 seconds, remaining value is approximately original × 0.99^floor(elapsed seconds/10), rounded per resource. Galaxy settings may change the rate or interval.
| Elapsed time | Approximate value remaining |
|---|---|
| 1 minute | 94% |
| 5 minutes | 74% |
| 10 minutes | 55% |
| 15 minutes | 40% |
| 30 minutes | 16% |
Half remains after roughly 11½ minutes. The fraction compounds; the absolute amount lost per interval becomes smaller as the field shrinks. Adding new debris first settles existing decay.
Harvesting
Send Recyclers or Reapers on a Harvest mission. Both have 50,000 base cargo before applicable research; travel fuel is paid from the origin separately and does not reserve hold space. At least one salvage ship is needed; you may take a partial load and return for the rest.
Select the debris itself in Galaxy view, including at an empty location or a location whose station owner is isolated. Harvest targets the field rather than the owner's stored assets.
Laser Technology adds personal harvest yield: level 1 grants 1% metal, 2% crystal and 3% deuterium; level 2 grants 1.01%, 2.02% and 3.03% before later tiers. Cargo must hold public salvage plus that personal yield. The Galaxy tooltip accounts for your bonus when suggesting salvage ships; personal yield is not added to the public field.
Automatic fresh-combat salvage
Combat Salvaging permits surviving combat ships to recover 1% of fresh battle debris at level 1; Recycler Upgrades lets surviving Reapers recover 2%. Later bonuses follow research tiers, subject to caps and cargo. Older debris still needs a Harvest mission.
Do not confuse bringing an ordinary Recycler to an attack with sending a Harvest mission. Schedule salvage arrivals after the expected combat time, including travel time in your launch plan. A separate harvest can lose the race to another player or arrive after substantial decay.
Profit planning
Compare loot plus actually recoverable salvage against ship losses, replacement costs and flight fuel. Do not count the whole initial field as guaranteed income.