Draconian Salvage Farming

Draconian Salvage Fleet Tactics

This section is for tactics that players have developed to taken down Draconian salvage fleet fast and easy. When you defeat Draconian Salvage fleets or Draconian fleets guarding resource depots you receive resources and can find Draconian Blueprint parts. These blueprint parts are collected in the intelligence center and give you access to Draconian weapons when the blueprint is complete and the requirements are met.
One method that always works for salvage fleets levels 1-6 and resources 1-8, and sometimes higher: Four Submarines with Havok Torpedoes4, No armor, Engine Upgrade1 or higher, (if you have Shipyard2, use ...) and some small, fast and easy repairable ship. The key to this is to start with one sub to get used to the timing, and then move to the four-ship fleet. In the battle, turn your ships around, and time their movements so that they stay just ahead of the draconian fleets. If you can target the draconian ships with missiles, do it; after they're all sunk, you have a lot more leeway when controlling your fleet. Proven tactic, very simple and widely used. 
Note: The resource dropped is divided between the four resources with slightly more metal than oil, slightly more energy than metal and slightly more zynthium than energy.

Salvage Fleets
Level	Estimated Salvage Amount	Appears Near Base Level	Draconian Fleet Level	Teir
1	25000	0 to 3	4	0
5	54000	4 to 7	8	0
9	90000	8 to 11	12	0
13	190000	12 to 15	16	1
17	330000	16 to 19	20	1
21	640000	20 to 23	24	2
25	1200000	24 to 27	28	2
29	2350000	28 to 31	32	3
33	4250000	32 to 35	36	3
37	9-10000000	36+	40	3

Level 1-3 Fleets

The Fleet make up

• Make a fleet with the lead ship (flagship) and/or ships (fleet slots 3 and 4) with below 300 HP, so it/they can be speed-up repaired.
• Marauder's and Longships are best used for this.
• Lower level players use their best ships. but attack in fleets of 4 or 5 ships as draconian fleets have only 3 ships.
• Range and power is important here as draconian ships are using thud 1 or 2 and some rapier 1 or 2, anything like cutlass (longer range) and thud/rapier 3 or 4 (power) is ok. 
• These are all good for auto attacking

Level 4 Fleets

These are good for auto-attacking. Their fleets are relatively weak and have low damage. Drops resources in the 100,000 - 200,000 range. Lower Lvl players will suffer repair times from these fleets.

Level 5 Fleets

Consists of 3 marauder sized and 2 longboat sized draconian ships. The two small ships have close range weapons. One of the bigger ships has splash rockets. One has Assault/Siege Cannons. The last one probably has Strike Missiles. This is good for auto-attacking. Their fleets are relatively weak and have low damage. Drops resources in the 300,000 - 400,000 range.

Level 6 Fleets

An easy and fast way to take down level 6 draconians  is with predator subs ( see video below). Old Strategy: Have several ships with mortars, turn the ships to face away from the oncoming Draconian Ships, then when at the edge of your Mortar range start moving your ships towards the edge of the map. This way the Draconian Ships will move into your falling Mortars. When near the edge of the map turn one ship up or down & have the others stop. Most of the lead ships will follow the one turning, allowing your others to follow parallel & dealing damage destroying the remaining Draconian Ships.
Drops around 500,000 - 750,000 resources

Level 7 Fleets

Level 7 fleets can be attacked with fast hulls with engines and strong armor. These Draconian fleets have weak short range defenses, so if you succeed in getting close to them fast, they won't have time to hurt you bad and have no defense against your strong short range weapons. This also works on level 8 fleets.
This is a tip I got from an other player and I have not been able to test this strategy personally, so let me know how it goes.
no doubt direct assault is a good way, but the repair cost and time maybe a bit high as the big ship may have one short range weapon.
Kiting the 4 marauders with mortars first and then circling the big ship with mortar will finish them off. 

Level 8 Fleets

Level 8 fleets are only for high levelers, (25+) but are extremely worthwhile to really stock up on resources
Level 8 fleets are notoriously difficult because they have a MASSIVE ship with 8 (yes, 8!) weapons and Huge shells.
The best way of dealing with these is using your own big ships, your FF`s (Floating Fortresses), a sea wolf and a SS (Stalker Submarine). send your 3 FFs turning around to head away from the draconians, while your SS and your sea wolf circle around out of range. When the draconians reach your FFs, speed the sea wolf and SS into the back of them, and, with your SS armed with rippers and your sea wolf armed with max level HR (Hydra Rockets) and watch as the Draconian fleet is bombarded with 30 Rockets!...
Another tactic uses 2 seawolfs armed thuds with hardened barrels3, no armor and engine upgrade2 and 2 subs engine upgrade2 no armor.. Picks off the 2 small ships with the subs and then slaughters the 3 other ships with the seawolfs, this can be done fast and very often without damage. No armor equals less repair time and costs.
Tactic 3 is equip a seawolf with cutlass missiles 3 and solid fuel, engines 2 or 3, no armor and laser targeting. once you enter battle take out the small missile ships from a distance solid fuel should give you extra range to kill small missile ships. after missile ships are gone move on to the bigger siege cannon ships the are easier once those two are out you should be left with a draconian ff to sink for the final ship use sea wolf to circle ship.

Level 9 Fleets

Level 9 fleets consist solely of the Draconian equivalent of FF's. Some appear to have engine upgrade since they don't travel at the same speed.


One of the easiest ways is to use submarines. Park your submarines right before they submerge and move only when the close combat based ships come to close as they can scan out your position. If your subs have ion thrusters installed on them then you can repeatedly do hit-and-run tactics on the long-range ships.
If your subs have level 2 or 3 engine upgrades you can just continuously circle mortar based ships but make sure your ships are stacked or really close.
If you are a high leveled player you can use a wolf destroyer with level 4 Thuds with Auto-Loader III, any damage reducing armor, and Engine III. Use whatever armor you like. This gives the ship KICKASS reload, an INSANE speed, and a BADASS damage reduction. It has a reload that is almost as fast as a Ripper. You could use Hardened Barrels III, but doesn't has the range it used to due to a badly needed balance that kixeye did, but still makes it useful as it would have more range than any ballistic weapons and it increase its damage range.


As an alternative. You could use a cutlass combo, or a Draconian rocket combo, or a combo of BOTH. But if you use the alternative. Your going to have to switch the specials with something that can boost the performance of penetrating weapons. Works with Leviathans too. Level 9 Draconian Salvage fleet drops resources in the 4 million range with slightly more zynthium. 

For a complete video guide on how to take 6-9 Draconian salvages without subs refer to this Kixeye forum post http://forums.kixeye.com/threads/155329-Complete-Video-guide-for-lvl-6-9-cargo-fleets

*Note* When attacking fleets with Predator Submarines its best to take your time and to try not to rush in destroying the enemy fleet, 1 mistake can take your subs out of action for over an hour.

The Predator Submarine make-up used in the above videos.