What’s This Carbon Rod For?
While doing original City of Heroes missions, you may have seen the message pop up after you’ve defeated an enemy: “Invention Salvage Found!” This message may appear in white text, yellow text, or orange text.
Invention Salvage is the collective term for items that drop off of enemies after you have defeated them. There are three levels of rarity: Common, Uncommon, and Rare. You can tell automatically what rarity of salvage you have gotten by the color of the “Invention Salvage Found!” text. If it’s white, you’ve found Common; yellow means Uncommon, and orange means Rare.
(A word of warning: don’t go scrambling to get rare salvage to try and make a fortune at Wentworth’s! Just because a piece of salvage is considered “rare” doesn’t mean it will automatically sell well, or that it will make a good Enhancement or costume piece. Indeed, some rare salvage is actually pretty useless for most characters.)
There are two varieties of Invention Salvage as well: Arcane and Tech. Tech Salvage can be pieces of machinery, samples of blood, and the like. Arcane Salvage is usually magical relics, charms, scrolls of paper, and other such items.
Lastly, there are three Level Groups of Salvage: Level 10-25, Level 26-40, and Level 41-50. These level ranges tell you what levels of enemies have these salvage pieces. You won’t find an Outcast member holding a level 41 piece of salvage, for instance.
Learn more about all the Invention Salvage in the game on my Salvage List page.
Invention Salvage is used to make Enhancements for your powers, as well as to build Costume pieces, such as Dragon Wings, that enhance the look of your character. To build an Enhancement or a Costume piece, you will need the recipe for the specific item you’re trying to build, as well as the Invention Salvage that the item requires. For the complete step-by-step process of building an enhancement, click here.