This article is timeless and should be accurate for any version of the game.
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The Scrap Hauler, designed by the Bassett Motor Society is a heavy-duty piece of machinery designed to reduce scrap metal and other materials into usable, raw resources. Scrap Haulers are often used to extract battlefield resources following skirmishes.
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— In-game description
The BMS - Scrap Hauler (also known as a Harvester) is a late-game logistics vehicle specially designed to harvest resource nodes at Resource Fields.
The BMS - Scrap Hauler holds one passenger and houses a crew of one soldier:
Driver (Seat 1)
Controls the movement of the vehicle, and can see the remaining fuel in the vehicle
Activates the harvesting ability - press/hold LMB
Interacts with nearby structures - press E or Shift + E
Passenger (Seat 2)
Can't do anything
NOTE: While the storage area is not supposed to carry Passengers, it is capable of transporting up to six players (similar to how a Barge or APC carries them).
Armament
The BMS - Scrap Hauler is not equipped with a main armament.
Although it doesn't have a main armament, the front grinder will kill players if they get too close while its operating.
The BMS - Scrap Hauler has 1250 HP and is disabled under 50% health. It has "Unarmoured" resistance, even small arms fire and Flamethrowers are a danger to it. It takes 125 Basic Materials to fully repair it from 1% to 100% health with a Hammer. Its health can be instantly repaired at a Garage for 100 Basic Materials.
Interactions
Can interact with most structures in proximity - press E or Shift + E
Pulls items from stockpiles twice as fast compared to on foot
Can pull three times the normal amount from stockpiles - press Shift + LMB
Can harvest resource nodes at Resource Fields - press/holdLMB
Hits a single node every second among those touching the front grinder
Compared to the Sledge Hammer, harvest rate is about 25% faster for Salvage and four times faster for Components and Sulfur.
Harvested resources are placed in its inventory. The visual model of the cargo hold changes depending on the type and amount of resources inside it. Each 137 items show as a pile of the respective resource.
Harvesting consumes 10L of fuel per minute. Using Petrol instead of Diesel doesn't affect harvesting.
The BMS - Scrap Hauler should ONLY be used at a Resource Field, as it drastically increases the harvesting time of resources, especially for rare resources like components and sulfur. Due to the increased carrying capacity of gathered resources, and the ease of which it is to store them into structures with stockpiles, it is highly recommended to use them in conjunction with Resource Containers. Doing so will only require 3.33 full trips in order to fill one up, compared to the 6.25 trips if you did it on foot with a full inventory.
Due to the increased effort to construct a Harvester, it is of great importance to protect them from partisans, as it's unarmored and can be destroyed, at the very least, with any weapon using 12.7mm. A simple way to protect it is with a little pen consisting of a minimum of Tier 2 Walls and a Gate.
Due to its high health and low disable threshold, it is capable of surviving a small amount of small arms fire. Despite that, it is highly discouraged to use this vehicle in combat scenarios.
Tips
The Driver can smash the vehicle into a packaged Resource Container to remove the shipping wire off it, allowing them to place resources inside of it.
Due to its expensive cost, as well as it being facility-locked, it is highly-recommended to store them in areas that cannot be easily destroyed by enemy partisans, such as being Walls and Gates, or hoisted on Facility Cranes.
NOTE:While these techniques will not guarantee the safety of the vehicle(s), it does increase the chances of them surviving in case an enemy partisan walks by.
Trivia
The Harvester initially released in Update 0.28, it had three options, which alter the actions of the vehicle.
Splitting (RMB) - Broke down resource nodes into smaller pieces (so more players can simultaneously mine a Resource Field at maximum efficiency).
This mechanic was later removed due to changes regarding resource nodes. They now break after a number of hits, which would break the node into two smaller nodes (until there is no more harvestable resources left).
Dismantle (LMB) - Gradually dismantles most defensive structures (works against both friendly and enemy defenses) and recycles them into Salvage or Components at a rate of 4:1 of the original resource cost; this is a much cheaper albeit slower alternative to using explosives and ammo to destroy disconnected defenses.
It was discovered that prior to the release of Update 1.52 that the Harvester had code that allowed it to dismantle certain structures. Due to the inclusion of more recent structures, it was seems that it was intentional, or a part of the game's development. This code was later removed and noted in the patch notes.
List of structures that can no longer be harvested:
Gates and Walls (all tiers).
Barbed Wire, Sandbags, Dragon's Teeth, and Field Bridges.
Power Switches.
Pillboxes (Rifle, MG, and AT).
Infantry Mine Ploppables and Gun Nests (non-existent).
Despite Coke not being a harvestable resource, it is able to carry it in its inventory. Similar to other raw resources, it will display in the back of the vehicle.
Gallery
The BMS - Scrap Hauler from the front
The BMS - Scrap Hauler from the back
A BMS - Scrap Hauler mining nodes at a Salvage Field
A BMS - Scrap Hauler mining nodes at a Sulfur Field
Render Model of a BMS - Scrap Hauler loaded with Sulfur