Vulture - The Best Ship for Solo Salvager

If you ever wanted a ship that looks like it was built out of repurposed shipping containers and sheer spite, this is it. The Drake Vulture isn’t here to impress. It’s here to work, complain about working, and then somehow outwork everyone else.

This isn’t luxury. This is industry. It’s a flying skip with engines — a proud, noisy declaration that you’re not afraid to get your hands (and probably everything else) covered in metallic dust and recycled hull plating.

Exterior

The Vulture’s body is all exposed mechanics, sharp lines, and practical ugliness. The sort of design that screams “functional” in the same tone a parent uses when describing a child’s macaroni art. Twin salvage arms protrude like industrial insect mandibles, ready to strip derelict ships to the bone. The hull is painted in industrial yellow because nothing says “I mean business” quite like the color of hazard tape.

The ship’s compact frame — about 33 meters long — makes it agile enough to weave through debris fields, yet solid enough to survive the occasional “gentle bump” with a ruined Starfarer.

Interior

Inside, the Vulture is a one-person operation. A single cockpit seat, a bunk, some storage, and a faint smell of burnt lubricant. The layout is brutally efficient: step in, sit down, scrape metal, make money. No mess hall, no crew lounge, no fuss.

Behind the pilot’s seat sits the cargo grid, capable of holding 12 SCU of processed salvage. There’s a small bunk area for long nights on the job and a tiny space for basic amenities. It’s not comfortable, but when you live in a Vulture, comfort’s something you left behind with your social life.

Performance & Capability

The Vulture is purpose-built for light salvage. That means it’s designed to scrape hulls, not fight pirates. You’ve got dual scraper beam mounts to melt away wreckage and pull in valuable materials, along with tractor systems to wrangle the debris.

It’s light, nimble, and able to fly solo. This is what makes it brilliant — no crew to pay, no one to argue with about fuel stops. Just you, your beams, and a vast, silent junkyard full of someone else’s misfortune.

However, its weapons are… modest. Two size-1 mounts for defensive guns. Enough to discourage an overly curious scavenger, but not enough to win a fight. Think of it as the space equivalent of carrying a butter knife to a gunfight.

Use Cases

• Perfect for solo salvagers who want independence.

• Great as a starter ship for the salvage profession.

• Excellent for hit-and-run recovery ops in dangerous space.

• A handy support vessel alongside larger salvage ships like the Reclaimer.

Weaknesses

The Vulture is brilliant at one thing — and one thing only. Salvage. It won’t win dogfights, it won’t carry huge cargo loads, and it won’t impress dates. It’s slow, has limited storage, and if something goes wrong out in the black, there’s no one else on board to help.

But that’s the point. It’s built for the kind of pilot who looks at a half-destroyed wreck and sees opportunity, not danger.

Specifications

Verdict

The Vulture is the very definition of blue-collar space grit. It’s not fast, glamorous, or polite. But it’ll keep going when fancier ships are begging for a tow. It’s the workhorse of the scrapyard — loud, stubborn, and surprisingly capable.

Fly one long enough, and you start to feel a certain pride in its scars. Every dent tells a story, every scrape a paycheck. If ships had personalities, the Vulture would be that gruff old mechanic who says little, works hard, and always knows how to get the job done.