Filling up your base buster before hitting base proper

Have you ever taken a freshly fixed fleet and floated it to a foe only to have it effed up and nothing to show for it? Yeah, me too and it sucks.

To get around the feeling of failure, I have found that if I load up my base buster first, I always have something to haul back and can still cram another 400% in. I usually plot my course to the target and look for 4 cargo/salvage and higher (blueprint drop) along the way. Other reasons for doing this would be to offset the fleet repair cost and increasing your keep margin if you get attacked on the way out.

Better to get something than nothing IMO. When you push a fleet out, don't bring it back empty, because it is a wasted trip! - DPR