How to cut salvage in Hardspace: Shipbreaker

Hardspace: Shipbreaker tasks you with working your way out of nigh-insurmountable debt by taking apart wrecked spaceships and salvaging their parts for money. To carry out your daily duties, you’ll have to rely heavily on your trusty modular cutter.

The cutter does exactly what you would expect it to. It lets you break the ship you’re working on up into several smaller, more manageable pieces. However, depending on the situation, you might have to use different types of cutters — cutter heads — to get the desired cut. This guide will explain how to use the cutter, as well as when the best time to use each cutter head is.

The Stinger head – Use on small cut points

Despite being the default head on the cutter, the Stinger head doesn’t do all that much cutting. Rather, it basically melts anything it’s capable of cutting. You’ll primarily use this tool on smaller cut points, which will melt after a few seconds of sustained laser fire by the Stinger.

Alternatively, you can use the stinger to melt any materials with a cut level of 1. To easily view cut levels, hit “up” on the directional pad for your controller to activate your scanner. This will allow you to easily see what types of materials make up the ship’s structures, as well as what the cut level of each structure is.

The Splitsaw head – Use to break up bigger, heavier pieces

Unlike the Stinger, the Splitsaw head is meant for more traditional cutting. You can switch to the Splitsaw by hitting “right” on the directional pad. When fired, it unleashes a beam that will cut right through its target. You can change whether the beam makes horizontal or vertical cuts by hitting the left trigger while the head is equipped; the aiming reticle should change its orientation depending on which type of cut it’s set to.

Like the other head, however, you will only be able to cut through structures that are cut level 1. Try to cut through anything stronger, and nothing will happen.

This head is particularly useful for slicing up heavier, larger pieces of scrap into lighter chunks that can then be easily grasped and transported with the grapple gun. If you’ve removed a large part of a ship, it’s always worth checking to see if it’s cuttable. When moving heavier pieces, it’s possible to get carried by their great momentum into the salvage duct, which will almost certainly kill you.