Player Features and Ideas Discussion

tl;dr: Plastic Wrap is way better than cans. People make courier contracts just to turn deliveries into Plastic Wrap. We should be able to plastic-wrap deliveries without using courier contracts.

Long-winded explanation follows:

Doing supply runs for a corp or alliance tends not to be the most satisfying from a gameplay perspective. It is a rather tedious profession for people with masochistic tendencies.

One of the many problems stems from the fact that not everyone has a jita alt to simply courier contract their purchases. Corporations often organize orders though a webshop interface, but someone still has to buy the items and correctly separate them again at the destination. This gets very tedious as more people order more items and there is more room for mistakes.

An alternative would be separating orders in containers, one container per order. However, some container types don't play well with jumpfreighters. It also introduces a lot of wasted space. Space is expensive on JF.

Enter plastic wraps. As a workaround, it has become common to courier contract items to an alt. This results in a plastic wrap container. The container can be renamed and doesn't waste any space. The plastic wrap containers are then traded back to the JF pilot, shipped, and contracted whole to the receiving player.

This workaround creates its own problems however. Here's the absolute minimum number of steps required for an in-corp alt:

1. Items in deliveries are courier contracted to the alt
2. Alt accepts contract for corp
3. JF pilot takes the plastic wrap, renames it to make it recognizable
4. alt fails the courier contract
5. JF pilot deletes the contract

I consider it an abuse of game mechanics, but it's still vastly preferable to the alternatives. Therefore, I propose to make it easier to access.

//edit: Changed title to make it clearer. Also:

I have intentionally not suggested specific solutions. I am neither a UI designer nor familiar with Eve's code. However, to make it clearer, here are some examples:

• Add a context menu entry to wrap a selected number of items into plastic wraps
• Add a flexible volume container that extends or shrinks as items are put in or taken out
• Let people create a shipping manifest (a list of items and their quantities as a simple text file) and allow people to create a shipping create according to this manifest with the push of button. Items are taken from deliveries, corp hangars or personal hangar. This would integrate nicely with many corp/alliance logistics tools.
• etc. etc.

I like the idea and for quite different reasons.

Now and then there happens a situation when I'd like to prepare a ship for use, just not now. Such wrapping would be nice solution, when I could wrap a ship along with all modules I'd like to use into one nice package which could have been moved wherever I want it to have.

Scan Reflective Bubble Wrap.

Made from plastics or something from PI. It is a container that is produced and used like any other, except it prevents cargohold scanning on items inside of it and it can stretch to fit any size items.

The restriction? You need one for every item (or stack of items) that you want to be scan proof.

Completing a courier contract destroys the plastic wrap container, but the plastic wrap container is what I'm after. I don't want to break the container (aka deliver the courier contract) at the destination because all items will just mix with other deliveries, my own stocks and trading stocks.

It is also much neater for the people receiving the goods. They get a nice present with their name on it, they can break the wrapping now or have a ready made package for later.

Everything that makes our Logibro's life less tedious is something I wholeheartedly agree with.

Holy molly that actually makes sense. +1

This is a good idea.

This idea is good, and I see no harm in it.

Other than the environment. poor dolphins, man, getting stuck in plastic wrap leftovers.

This change of policy can only be implemented if facilities are equipped with enough recycling equipment for plastic materials.

I suggest this and people tell me I'm an idiot. You suggest it and you get a ton of likes. What gives? I'm not allowed to make intelligent suggestions?

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=288396
See? No likes. Not one.

Just having a glimpse on your thread I think the mistake you made was to make a case of unscannability while here the focus is on goods logistics.

Marketing, dude. :)