As long-time forum readers know, there’s a perennial crop of butt-hurt mission runners who pop up about once a week on the official EVE forums to complain about “salvage thieves” and either (a) claim that salvage is an exploit or (b) demand that the salvage mechanic be “fixed”.

I’ve long maintained a page of handy quotes from the CCP people who have explained that salvage is not theft and is functioning as intended. It’s even in UBB format so that I and others can cut-and-paste into the forum threads, to save time.

Today, one of the software engineers (CCP Prism) made a statement worth updating the page for. It’s a politer version of Ironfleet’s long-standing policy: if it’s not in your cargo hold or your hangar, it’s not yours.

Why is stealing salvage OK?

It’s not.

It shouldn’t even be possible to move an item from your cargo-hold / hanger to another persons cargo-hold / hanger without opening a trade window. Before the salvage enters those containers it is not considered your stuff by the server code. Hence it’s not stealing.

If you’re surprised as to why the server does not consider it your stuff, it’s because it’s a mini profession designed for people who want to roam and look for salvage, not to further increase the revenue from mission grinding. I doubt anyone with a perspective thinks we need to high-sec increase mission grinding any further.

Emphasis added.

7 Responses to “Salvage Is Not Stealing”

  1. Murdock Jones says:

    I ran into a couple of ninja salvagers in one my missions the other night and thought of you. lol It was really kind of funny. I didn’t have the DPS at the time to pop the particular NPCs so in order for them to get any salvage they had to help me. It worked out well in the end for all involved.

  2. Michan Yu says:

    LOL now lets tell everyone about your website so they can see..

    Mind you would be kinda pointless as all we’d get is the same lame responce from carebears every time

  3. Marlenus says:

    Michan, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about?

    Murdock, good to see you!

  4. Michan Yu says:

    Its in response to your post of course Marlenus,

    I was suggesting we give all the carebears your website details so they can read it themselves.. Then i had a revelation…. And that’s what the second statement is for.. They’d all say “no no not reading it” and continue along the same lame reasons why wrecks should be stealing..

    Basically i was saying i agree with you yet at the same time, i feel arguing the point is a waste of time as all you get is the same response from carebears all the time.

    Note Quote added to BIO :)

  5. Marlenus says:

    Ah, OK, I wasn’t following you the first time.

    The only point in arguing is to have fun — when I’m too busy/tired/bored of it, then I just drop the quotes for education and to move on. But I do enjoy arguing, sometimes.

  6. Lei Merdeau says:

    Hey, many carebears are pro salvage, me for example.

  7. Marlenus says:

    Lei, I think you’re responding to Michan, but I’d like to make it clear for other readers; I used the phrase “butt-hurt mission runners” precisely because I’m not a big fan of pigeon-holing people as “carebears” or mocking them once they are pigeon-holed.

    For most of my EVE career, I’d say I’ve been more carebear than not; even carebears have teeth and claws, after all, but I’ve never had the stomach for the uncontrolled and unpredictable chaos of 0.0, or even (most days) low sec.

    It’s true that I now belong to an alliance that places great value on collecting and savoring “carebear tears”, but that’s not really Ironfleet’s way. We’re compatible with TEARS in many ways, but we’re motivated somewhat differently. And I prefer to mock individual players when they are worthy of mockery, rather than mocking whole classes of players. I’d even go so far as to say EVE needs carebears, and I don’t mind sharing space with ’em until they start demanding that everybody else play the game their way.

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