Star Citizen Salvage “Power On” Bug and Locked Cargo Confirmed
A developer has investigated two failures affecting disabled ships, with fixes ticketed but no release date announced.
Two confirmed bugs can leave a wreck blocked from salvage and its cargo inaccessible after the ship has been disabled.
The power plant is destroyed, the target has gone dark, and your salvage system still insists the ship has its power on. If you have been staring at that contradiction from a salvage cockpit, there is now a developer explanation: a destroyed power plant can leave the ship incorrectly recognised as powered, preventing salvage.
On 9 October, developer XLB-CIG confirmed that this behaviour had been debugged and ticketed, alongside a second bug that keeps cargo attached to the grid of a disabled or bricked ship. The latter prevents players who do not own the ship from taking its cargo.
These are confirmed bugs awaiting fixes, not an announcement that either problem has already been resolved. The developer reply gives no release date or target build.
Why the wreck still says “Power On”
The discussion began with a player reporting that ships with destroyed power plants and shields could visibly lose power while still blocking fracture. The salvage system continued to return a powered-on state. That left the player with a wreck they expected to process and no way to start the intended fracture operation.
The developer’s follow-up identifies the destroyed-power-plant case as a bug and says it also occurs with bricked ships. That matters because it separates this particular failure from the ordinary requirement to deal with a powered target. Destroying the component and seeing the ship go dark can still leave the salvage check reporting the wrong state.
It does not follow that every failed fracture has the same cause. The confirmation concerns this specific interaction; it is not a general explanation for every salvage warning, target limitation or failed attempt.
The cargo grid can stay locked as well
The second ticket concerns cargo that remains locked to the grid on disabled or bricked ships, preventing non-owners from taking it. For a crew recovering material from a wreck, that can block another part of the same job: the hull will not process as expected, and the cargo cannot be recovered by the players trying to move it.
Although the problems can appear together, they are separate bugs. One concerns the ship’s power state as seen by salvage; the other concerns cargo remaining locked on the grid. A change to one should not be assumed to resolve the other until the fix is confirmed.
The developer also noted that there were more issues to investigate. The two tickets therefore cover specific failures, rather than promising a complete overhaul of disabled-ship behaviour, cargo access or salvage permissions.
What salvage crews can take from the confirmation
There is no verified workaround in the developer’s reply. Swapping to a different salvage ship, destroying more components or repeatedly attempting fracture should not be presented as a guaranteed solution. If a ship is already in the described state, the useful news is that the failure has been recognised and investigated.
Nor does the reply establish a new rule that all disabled ships should be freely lootable in every circumstance. It confirms an unwanted cargo-grid lock affecting non-owners in the cases described. Questions about other permissions and conditions need their own evidence.
For now, keep the distinction between confirmed and fixed in mind when planning a salvage run around disabled ships. A future patch note naming these changes will be more useful than assuming that a ticket means the repair is already on the Live servers.
If you are choosing a salvager rather than troubleshooting a wreck, our Vulture, Fortune and Salvation comparison covers the solo options. This bug is a separate consideration from their normal roles and equipment.