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Loot Categories
Loot categories control what PWAL is allowed to loot.
Destinations control where loot goes.
These are separate systems.
If a category is turned off, PWAL will ignore that category no matter where the destination is set.
If looting is disabled, PWAL will ignore everything.
Read that twice before reporting a bug.
PWAL now supports both ground loot categories and selected space salvage support. These are handled under one framework, but they may use different backend logic depending on the loot source.
Each loot category is a filter.
When PWAL finds something lootable, it checks what kind of item it is.
Then it checks whether that category is enabled.
If the category is enabled, PWAL can process it.
If the category is disabled, PWAL leaves it alone.
That is intentional.
Some categories are normal item categories.
Some categories are source categories, such as containers, corpses, scanner-based loot sources, asteroid deposits, space cargo, or hostile ship debris.
Both matter.
An item may be valid, but the source that contains it may still be disabled or unsupported.
PWAL organizes loot into broad groups.
These may include:
- Consumables
- Armor
- Books and Dataslates
- Miscellaneous
- Resources
- Weapons
- Containers
- Corpses
- Harvestables
- Scanner-based loot sources
- Space salvage
- Special backend categories
Exact menus may change as the framework develops.
Ground loot categories cover normal gameplay loot sources.
These may include:
- Loose items
- Containers
- Corpses
- Harvestables
- Scanner-based pickups
- Supported world objects
Ground loot may be affected by scan radius, location restrictions, category toggles, destination settings, and forced-routing rules.
Space salvage covers selected space-based loot sources.
Confirmed supported in version 1.1.2:
- Asteroid deposits
- Space cargo
- Destroyed hostile ship debris
Space salvage is handled through its own isolated pipeline instead of being forced through the normal ground-looting scanner.
This keeps space salvage cleaner, safer, and easier to maintain.
Space salvage does not mean PWAL can loot every floating object in space.
Some space objects are scenery, quest objects, activators, markers, or Bethesda nonsense wearing a rock costume.
If space salvage is enabled but something does not loot, make sure the object is actually a supported space salvage source.
Consumables include items the player can eat, drink, inject, or otherwise use.
Common consumable categories include:
- Aid
- Chems
- Drinks
- Food
These categories can usually be toggled separately.
If you do not want PWAL grabbing food and drinks, leave those categories off.
If you want useful medical items but not every sandwich in the Settled Systems, configure the categories accordingly.
Armor categories cover wearable protective gear.
Common armor categories include:
- Apparel
- Backpacks
- Helmets
- Spacesuits
Armor can take up a lot of inventory space.
If you route armor to the player, expect your carry weight to notice.
If you route it to storage, check that storage before assuming the item vanished into the void.
Weapon categories cover usable weapons.
Common weapon categories include:
- Heavy Weapons
- Melee Weapons
- Pistols
- Rifles
- Shotguns
- Throwable Weapons
Weapons are often worth checking manually if you care about rolls, mods, or condition-style preference.
PWAL can collect them, but it cannot care about your personal taste.
That is your job.
Books and dataslates cover readable items.
This area may include:
- Books
- Dataslates
- Landmark books
- Skill magazines
Some of these are forced to the player.
Skill magazines and landmark books are not normal storage loot.
They go to the player because they are tied to progression or direct acquisition behavior.
Do not report that as a routing bug.
Miscellaneous covers a lot of loose item types.
Depending on the current build, misc categories may include:
- Ammo
- Crafting items
- Contraband
- Currency
- Junk
- Keycards
- Collectibles
Misc is where things can get messy because Starfield has a lot of items that live under broad item types.
That is why PWAL uses category rules instead of just grabbing every random object like a raccoon with admin rights.
Collectibles always go to the player.
This includes collectible-style items grouped under PWAL’s Collectibles handling.
Older separate misc categories may be consolidated into Collectibles.
That is intentional.
Collectibles should not disappear into storage and make players think PWAL ate them.
The panda does not hoard your collectibles.
Currency-style items are forced to the player.
This includes things like credits and similar direct-value pickups.
Currency is not normal storage loot.
It belongs to the player.
Keycards are forced to the player.
They are often tied to access, doors, quests, or progression.
PWAL should not bury them in storage.
If a keycard gets looted, it should go to the player.
Contraband is special.
Current PWAL behavior routes contraband to the Lodge Safe.
This is intentional for the current release.
Starfield’s contraband scanning system can cause stupid arrest-loop problems if automation moves contraband into the wrong place.
Contraband in the player inventory can get the player busted.
Contraband in normal ship cargo can also cause scan problems depending on shielded cargo and scan-jammer conditions.
PandaWorks Inventory is being reviewed because it became visible to the contraband scanner unexpectedly. Until that behavior is fully understood and corrected, Lodge Safe routing is the safer current behavior.
If you want to smuggle contraband, move it manually when you are ready.
Do not expect PWAL to throw contraband into your pocket and then act surprised when space cops ruin your day.
Junk covers low-value clutter and general useless loot.
Junk is one of the main reasons PWAL exists.
If you want junk cleaned up, enable the category.
If you do not want junk, leave it off.
If you enable junk and route it somewhere, PWAL will do exactly that.
Do not enable junk and then complain that junk got looted.
Resources are crafting and material items.
PWAL may separate resources into several groups.
Common resource groups include:
- Inorganic Resources
- Organic Resources
- Manufactured Resources
Resources are often best handled differently than normal loot because players may want them stored for crafting, research, outposts, or ship work.
Resources may come from several different sources, including normal loot, harvestables, scanner-based pickups, asteroid deposits, and supported space salvage.
The resource type and the loot source are not always the same thing.
For example, an inorganic resource may come from a normal pickup, a harvestable source, a scanner-based source, or an asteroid deposit depending on how the game exposes it.
Inorganic resources include mined or mineral-style resources.
Common rarity groups may include:
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Exotic
- Unique
Harvest versions and spell-harvest versions may exist internally, but they should follow the main inorganic resource handling instead of being treated like separate player-facing destination systems.
Players do not need fifty different knobs for rocks.
Organic resources include biological materials.
Common rarity or handling groups may include:
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Exotic
- Unique
- Legendary
- Nonlethal Harvest
Organic resources may come from flora, fauna, harvest behavior, or other game systems.
If organic resources are enabled, PWAL can process supported organic resource pickups.
Manufactured resources are crafted or industrial resource items.
They may be grouped by tier, such as:
- Tier 01
- Tier 02
- Tier 03
These are usually crafting-related and may be routed separately from raw resources depending on available settings.
Container looting covers lootable containers.
Containers are not the same thing as loose items.
PWAL may scan containers, validate them, and move allowed items based on the enabled categories and routing rules.
If container looting is disabled, PWAL will not process containers.
If container looting is enabled but item categories are disabled, the container may be scanned but those disabled item types will still be ignored.
Yes, both things matter.
Corpse looting covers dead actors.
Corpses are not handled like normal containers.
Normal containers can be filtered by item category. Corpses currently cannot.
If corpse looting is disabled, PWAL will not process corpses.
If corpse looting is enabled, PWAL currently uses TakeAll on the corpse inventory.
That means the corpse inventory is transferred as a whole. Armor, weapons, ammo, credits, throwables, apparel, and other corpse inventory items are not filtered individually by category toggles in the current release.
All corpse loot goes to the selected corpse loot destination.
Filtered corpse looting is planned, but it is not available in the current version.
Harvestables cover resource-style pickups from plants, creatures, geology, or similar systems.
Harvest behavior can differ from normal container or corpse looting.
Some harvest systems may use activators or game-specific resource behavior.
That means some harvest-related items may need special rules.
If a harvest item must go to the player because of how the game handles it, PWAL will follow that rule.
Scanner-based loot sources cover items or resources exposed through scanner-style gameplay systems.
These are not always the same as normal loose items.
Some scanner-based sources may behave like activators, harvestables, resource pickups, or other game-specific references.
If scanner-based loot support is disabled, PWAL may ignore those sources even if the resulting item category is enabled.
If scanner-based loot support is enabled but a specific source still does not loot, the source may not be exposed in a way PWAL can safely process.
Bethesda loves hiding loot behind three fake doors and a cursed reference type.
Asteroid deposits are supported space salvage sources.
These are handled separately from normal ground loot.
Asteroid deposits may produce resources, but the asteroid deposit itself is a space salvage source.
That means both the space salvage behavior and the related resource handling may matter.
Supported asteroid deposit loot is intended to route into Player Ship Cargo.
If asteroid deposits are not looting, check:
- Looting is enabled.
- Space salvage support is available in the installed version/plugin.
- Asteroid deposit support is enabled, if separately configurable.
- The target is actually a supported asteroid deposit.
- The player has a valid home ship or ship cargo target.
- You checked Player Ship Cargo.
Space cargo covers supported cargo-style loot sources found during space gameplay.
Space cargo is not the same thing as normal ground containers.
Supported space cargo is handled through the space salvage pipeline and is intended to route into Player Ship Cargo.
If space cargo does not loot, check that the object is actually a supported space cargo source and not scenery, a quest object, or some decorative space trash wearing a useful-looking hat.
Destroyed hostile ship debris covers supported salvage from destroyed enemy ships.
This is handled through the space salvage pipeline.
Hostile ship debris is not the same thing as normal containers, corpses, or loose ground loot.
Supported hostile ship debris is intended to route recovered loot into Player Ship Cargo.
PWAL does not delete, disable, or mutate ship debris refs.
It only transfers supported inventory.
If hostile ship debris does not loot, check:
- Looting is enabled.
- Space salvage support is available in the installed version/plugin.
- Hostile ship debris support is enabled, if separately configurable.
- The destroyed ship/debris is actually supported.
- The player has a valid home ship or ship cargo target.
- The debris has exposed loot PWAL can safely process.
- You checked Player Ship Cargo.
Not every destroyed object in space is guaranteed to be salvageable.
Some of it is just Bethesda confetti.
Always Loot does not mean “loot everything.”
Always Loot works with categories.
If a category is not enabled, Always Loot does not magically make the category valid.
Always Loot is a control layer, not a free-for-all button.
Space salvage may have separate rules depending on the source. Do not assume Always Loot overrides every space salvage requirement.
Some categories are controlled by the framework instead of normal player routing.
Examples include:
- Currency
- Keycards
- Skill magazines
- Landmark books
- Collectibles
- Contraband
These rules exist for safety, progression, or gameplay reasons.
Not every category should be player-configurable.
Some switches should stay behind the glass before someone presses them with their forehead.
Some categories exist mostly for internal framework handling.
These may include special routing groups, forced-routing groups, scanner support groups, harvest support groups, or space salvage support groups.
Not every backend category needs a player-facing toggle.
Some backend rules exist so the framework can keep the menu usable instead of turning the terminal into a haunted spreadsheet.
Some old or separate categories may have been merged.
For example, several collectible-style misc categories may now be handled under Collectibles.
Some harvest, scanner, or space salvage behavior may also be grouped under broader framework settings instead of appearing as fifty separate toggles.
That does not mean the category was forgotten.
It means the framework was cleaned up so the terminal menu does not become a cursed filing cabinet.
Check this first:
- Is looting enabled?
- Is that category enabled?
- Is the related source type enabled?
- Is the item actually part of that category?
- Is the source actually supported?
- Is the item in scan range, if range applies?
- Is the location allowed?
- Is the destination available?
- Is the item blocked by forced rules?
- Is the item exposed to Papyrus/CK in a way PWAL can process?
- For space salvage, did you check Player Ship Cargo?
- For contraband, did you check the Lodge Safe?
Most reports should start with category settings.
If the category is off, the item will not loot.
If the source type is off, PWAL may never process the source in the first place.
That is not a bug.
That is a destination issue, not a category issue.
Categories decide whether PWAL can loot an item.
Destinations decide where the item goes.
Some loot may also have forced routing for safety, progression, or engine behavior.
Supported space salvage is intended to route into Player Ship Cargo.
Current contraband behavior routes contraband to the Lodge Safe.
Check the destination page and your destination settings.
Loot categories decide what PWAL is allowed to loot.
Source categories decide what kinds of loot sources PWAL is allowed to process.
Destinations decide where that loot goes.
Forced rules override normal behavior when needed.
Collectibles always go to the player.
Contraband currently routes to Lodge Safe.
Supported space salvage is handled through a separate pipeline and is intended to route recovered loot into Player Ship Cargo.
If something is not being looted, check the category and source type before blaming the framework.
The panda only grabs what you told it to grab.
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PandaWorks AutoLoot for Starfield is proprietary mod content.
Do not reupload, redistribute, modify, port, or reuse any part of this project without explicit permission.