Reach Designations: A Salvager's Reference
By Roen Mavik, Salvager
Reach Designations
A Salvager's Reference
Second Print
By Roen Mavik Salvager, twenty years in the deep jumps
Self-published, ES 89
Why You Have This Book
Because you found something with a Reach mark on it and you need to know what it is, what it's worth, and whether it's safe to handle.
This reference is for working salvagers. Not historians. If you wanted a history, buy Halloran. This one is practical.
— R.M.
- Reading a Designation
Every piece of intact Reach equipment carries a designation. They follow a pattern. Once you know the pattern, you can read what you're holding.
The basic shape:
[Function] [Class] [Number]
Example: Auxiliary Logistics 12-B. The function is Auxiliary Logistics. The class is 12. The unit number is B.
For working salvage, the Function is what matters most. It tells you what the thing was for. Class and number distinguish individual units within that function.
1b. Functions You Will See
Common functions in recovered salvage, in rough order of frequency:
— Auxiliary Logistics (small support systems, cargo handling, life support backup)
— Stellar Cartography (navigation, route planning, sensor data)
— Archive Custodian (data storage, recording, library systems)
— Auxiliary Receiver (communications buoys, signal capture)
— Primary Coordination (major control systems — rare, mostly destroyed, what's left is sealed)
— Network Council (extremely rare; almost never recovered intact)
Continued.
- Common Designations
Some designations are common enough that you should recognize them by sight. They show up in most major salvage hauls.
Auxiliary Logistics 12-B (Aux-12B): small auxiliary unit. Common. Worth 200-400 credits intact, 50-100 stripped for parts.
Auxiliary Receiver Buoy 7 (Buoy-7): communications buoy class. Common. Most recovered units are inert. Live units are rare and trigger Compact attention.
Archive Custodian Theta-9 (Theta-9): data-storage class. Variable value depending on what data is recoverable. Long Listeners pay well for intact ones.
Stellar Cartography Unit Gamma (Cart-Gamma): navigation system. Mid-tier value. Some operate when powered; most don't.
Continued.
- Notable Designations
Some designations show up rarely or in unusual contexts. Worth knowing about even if you'll never personally recover one.
Primary Coordination System 4 (Sys-4): top-class coordination unit. Almost certainly destroyed in the Silence. If you find one, do not engage. Report it.
Network Council Coordination (NCC): mythic-tier. May not actually exist. Salvager mythology has placed it in three different sectors over my career. None confirmed.
Garden Three Primary Care (Garden Three): habitat-class designation. Catalogued but no surveyed location matches it. Origin unknown.
The Garden Three label is one of the open problems of the salvage trade. Items marked with it surface occasionally and we have no idea where they came from. Pay rate reflects this — they are very interesting to certain buyers.
Continued.
- What to Do With Designations
Rule one: do not modify a designation. Buyers want them intact. Filed-off marks halve the value, sometimes more.
Rule two: check the buyer's list before you handle anything. Some designations are restricted. The Compact wants to know if you have a Primary Coordination unit. Brace wants to know if you find a Network Council piece.
Rule three: if a designation is one you don't recognize, ask. Catalogues are at every IPU outpost. Ask the Outpost Quartermaster. The Salvager at Outpost Alpha will buy reference work too.
Rule four: if a designation seems to point to something that should not exist — like Garden Three — log it carefully and bring it to a Long Listener researcher. They pay better than market.
Continued.
- Last Word
The Reach left a lot of equipment behind. Most of it is dead. Some of it isn't. The designation is your first clue to which.
If the unit you're holding looks dead and reads as a common Auxiliary, sell it. If it reads as something larger, slower, or unfamiliar — be careful.
The field is full of people who got rich finding the wrong thing. The field is also full of people who got dead the same way. Be the first kind.
— R.M.
Reach Designations: A Salvager's Reference. Self-published ES 89 by Roen Mavik. Second print run. Sold at Outpost Alpha and select frontier vendors.