MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries/Salvage

An important part of Mercenaries is the addition of a salvage system, where the remains of enemy mechs can be recovered by the victors. This serves as both a secondary form of income and also the only way to acquire Clan mechs.

Salvage mechanics
On the surface, carefully disabling an enemy mech by destroying as little of it as possible means there is a chance that mech will be available in your share of the salvage... right? Wrong. According to designer Jack Mamais:
 * "Initially, we had the sim spit out the salvage ... All the sim could keep track of was whether ... the player got a headshot ... it was not reliable at all ... So we went with the system you currently see ... the salvage is predetermined by the Designer (In this case Dustin Browder) and then the computer randomly determines what you get depending on the terms in the contract. What you kill does have an affect on you because you get additional money for each enemy you vanquish, but it has no effect on salvage."

This means the only advantage to taking out enemy mechs is to gain the 50,000 bounty bonus for their destruction, if the contract even offers one.

Salvaging
Depending on your salvage rights (stated when you read the contract summary) you will usually get some share of the salvage. Contracts with salvage rights defined as "poor" will often end with no salvage. If salvage is available there will be a big Salvage button at the bottom of the aftermath screen. Once there the interface is much like the Customization and Repair & Reload screens.

Salvaging chassis
If you are lucky, there will be a "recover chassis" button at the bottom of the screen. Always choose it if it is available, as it is far more valuable than individual parts. Not only that, once you get to the repair & reload screen you can patch it up and then either use it in combat or else sell when you return to the starport. If you don't want to use a mech straight away don't bother repairing it until you return to the starport. Try to always fully repair a mech before you sell it because the increase to its resale value far outweighs the repair costs.

Salvaging parts
If the "recover chassis" button is not available you can still harvest individual components. Click on each part of the mech's body (parts the same color as the background are completely destroyed) and double click on parts listed to add them to your inventory. Some parts will be damaged (indicated by red text ) and must be repaired by an arms merchant back at the starport before they will be usable. They still have value, however, so take them with you if you have the room.

Once you have stripped a mech, use the drop-down menu beside its name to choose another mech to salvage parts from. Always check for the existence of the "recover chassis" button, as usually only a couple of the salvaged mechs can be fully recovered.

Discarding parts
If you run out of room in your dropship you can choose to discard parts in order to make room for more valuable ones. Discards are listed as a "discards" entry in the mech name drop-down menu. The discards pile is always empty by default, so don't bother checking it if you didn't put parts there yourself.

Aftermath
Once you are satisfied with your salvage, click Exit and confirm you are content. Once you have done this the Salvage button will vanish from the aftermath screen.