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Cargo Hold & Welding
Repairing the ship's Cargo Hold, what it gives you once it's welded shut, and what else you can weld.
Your ship's Cargo Hold at the Crash Site is damaged. Repairing it is a two-part job: install the right materials, then weld it back together.
Unlocking the repair
The repair opens up once Wade Rusk puts you on the Hold It Together job, which arrives automatically after you finish Waste Not. Until then, the Cargo Hold just shows as damaged.
The material recipe
The repair needs exactly 15 Refined Ferrite and 6 Slag. You can contribute materials across more than one visit, but the game asks you to confirm the exact amount each time — once installed, materials can't be taken back out.
Welding it shut
Once both materials are complete, Welding becomes available while you're stationary at the Crash Site. It takes twelve separate welding passes, each about three seconds, to finish the repair.
What you get
A repaired Cargo Hold gives you 32 slots of on-site storage at the Crash Site. You can deposit or withdraw a single item or a whole stack while you're stationary there — it's separate from what you're carrying in Inventory.
Welding other things
Welding isn't a one-off button for your ship. Once you've learned it, it's something your character knows how to do, and there are other jobs that need it — starting with the Crew Stop in town, which you can repair during Out of the Weather.
Every welding job works the same way and uses the same skill: install its materials, then weld it in passes of about three seconds each, with each finished pass earning the same Welding XP. What changes from job to job is how much material it needs and how many passes it takes. The Crew Stop needs 20 Refined Ferrite, no Slag, and ten passes.
You can also weld with nothing at stake at all. Wade's workbench at Rusk Recovery lets you practice as much as you like, for scrap rather than for a repair.
Clean Pass
Twice during any welding job — a repair or practice — a moment opens up where the bead is running clean and you can lay one in. A Clean Pass control appears next to the normal controls for about three seconds.
Take it in time and the work jumps forward a whole extra pass, and pays that pass's XP. Miss it and absolutely nothing happens: it costs no material, no progress, and no time, so there is never a reason not to let one go by. The two moments are decided when the work unit starts, and stopping and resuming never moves them or gives you another go at one you were in the middle of.