Salvage from battles in space

[Coriendal]

When a aerospace fighter or dropship is destroyed in space by a structural integrity collapse is any part of it salvageable?

Do the pilots of the ASF eject? 

Do any of the crews of the drop ships survive?

If you are going to tell me it is in one of the rulebooks please include a page number so I can highlight it for future reference.

Thanks in advance.

[NightmareSteel]

StratOps 175, Repair and Replacement, subsection Destroyed vs. Truly Destroyed, explains Aerospace units, WarShips, DropShips, etc, all irrecoverably destroyed when SI reduced to 0.  Salvageable components may remain.

Complete Destruction states that if any unit is destroyed due to ammo explosion, no  salvageable components remain.

Paragraph at the bottom of page 175, same section, same subsection contains aerospace specific information.

[NightmareSteel]

StratOps page 191, Salvage, 2nd paragraph, give requirements to salvage given units, including ASF, DropShip, WarShip, etc.

[DarthRads]

Salvaging WarShips is definitly possible,a fter all where did all those SL era vessels in the WoB fleet and FWLN come from? Not to mention the Taurian frigate lobbing nukes...

[NightmareSteel]

I just quoted the rules.  I assume you can effectively disable a WarShip without actually killing it's SI.  Destroying the SI just means the hulk breaks up- you can still salvage armour and weapons.

This also means that it might behoove you to abandon ship before the ship is actually destroyed- this way if you win, you can salvage the hulk as well as the weapons.

This only applies of course to campaigns- one-off tacticals where salvage doesn't matter need not apply, obviously.

[DarthRads]

True...wasn't ahving a go, just meant it must be possible otherwise WoBies couldn't have done it

[NightmareSteel]

Those reasons I gave before?  That's how.

Also, mothballed ships.  Decommissioned warships (Capitalized or otherwise) aren't immediately destroyed.  Gotta put the shut down, air-evacuated, sealed hulks somewhere until you need 'em right?

Some isolated backwater with no useful purpose sounds dandy to me.

[Stormlion1]

Some ships may have been to damaged to repair on the spot and were abandoned, with the intent of someday of going back and slavaging them, or misjumped ships and the cres die in space and the hulks later discovered.

[Coriendal]

Thank you for the quick reply with page numbers.  Being able to salvage parts from the two Leopard drop ships, three Seydlitz and one Stingray will definetly help the bottom line.  I don't do megamek space battles very often and I wanted to make sure I wasn't cheating myself out of salvage for my campaign game.

Thanks again.

[Frabby]

Keep in mind though that there cannot be debris fields in space. If something blows up, its parts move along their vector and velocity unchanged (no atmosphere or gravity to brake them or alter their vector) and in the case of combat actions, the parts will typically have very different vectors. Your "debris field" is rapidly expanding and will be gone beyond hope of salvaging as much as a single piece of scrap in a matter of hours or even minutes. At least where smallish items like DropShips and fighters are concerned.

The only place where a classic debris field is remotely thinkable is a stable planetary orbit. Even then, stuff will drift apart really soon.

[Coriendal]

So if I punch through a Leopard's left side and the SI collapses does it blow up like an ammunition explosion?  I would think that the interior would decompress but the engine room and possibly weapon bays might be salvageable.

Anyone have ideas about this?

I have two Union's and a Condor in close proximity and the remaining Leopard is not catchable.  What do you guys think I might be able to grab right away.

Thanks for the ideas and input.

[NightmareSteel]

Your example is correct with regards to decompression and salvage.  Destruction of SI does not automatically entail all of the ammunition exploding.

StratOps 175, Repair and Replacement, subsection Destroyed vs. Truly Destroyed, explains Aerospace units, WarShips, DropShips, etc, all irrecoverably destroyed when SI reduced to 0.  Salvageable components may remain...

I direct your attention to "salvagable components may remain."

If SI collapses, ammo does *not* explode, and as long as the Leopard doesn't crash (say, if it was killed it atmosphere, or drifts into a moon or something), it is salvageable. The Leopard itself is not recoverable as a unit, but armour, surviving weapons, and such like may be salvageable, per the rules.

The amount you can salvage is based heavily on amount of time spent.

[Coriendal]

Awesome.  Thanks for all the replies. 

[klinktastic]

Bear in mind, that if you're enroute to the planet to land for an offensive, you're probably not stopping to collect salvage while reinforcements could be on the way.  If you're defending, and you repelled them, then by all means.

[Stormlion1]

I remember years back someone pointing out that the only real method of salvage in the Battletech universe when it came to space combat is picking the debris that collided with your ship out of the hull when the other ship exploded and it collided with yours.

[NightmareSteel]

That's very... interesting imagery.  I think inaccurate, but hey, go with what you like.