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2 small, easy API fixes that are absolutely essential for asset accounting
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Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#1 - 2013-01-22 13:40:35 UTC
Developers, in trying to track down my net worth I have run into two issues that make it impossible:


  • I can't query the contents of a courier contract I made. This means that my assets disappear from the time I put them into the contract until it is completed. That leaves a hole in my accounting the size of such assets. Make a courier for 200M worth of goods? Instant loss of 200M to a black hole. Courier gets done? Sudden 200M profit.
  • I would like to keep track of the prices paid for BPCs and researched BPOs through contracts. That would require that those item's unique id, as is returned in the itemID field of the asset query, would be returned when querying contract assets as well. This looks like a simple oversight. This is important so I can go through the hundreds of bpcs I have and know how much they're worth, and it's a substantial amount.


Both issues are very important in keeping track of one's personal assets and at the same time look like trivial changes to the api, please have them looked into.
TheSkeptic
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2013-01-22 16:21:01 UTC
Not tried the call myself, but does this really not work?

http://wiki.eve-id.net/APIv2_Char_ContractItems_XML

...

Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#3 - 2013-01-22 16:31:39 UTC
TheSkeptic wrote:
Not tried the call myself, but does this really not work?

http://wiki.eve-id.net/APIv2_Char_ContractItems_XML

It only works for item exchange contracts.

It fails for courier contracts.
Louis Vitton
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2013-01-23 10:54:15 UTC
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2383

taken from the link above
" /char/ContractItems.xml.aspx: Lists items that a specified contract contains, use the contractID parameter to specify the contract. Note that items for courier contracts are not displayed. Each item in the list has the following attributes:

recordID: A unique key.
typeID: The type of the item.
quantity: The actual quantity.
rawQuantity: This attribute will only show up if the quantity is a negative number in the DB. Negative quantities are in fact codes, -1 indicates that the item is a singleton (non-stackable). If the item happens to be a Blueprint, -1 is an Original and -2 is a Blueprint Copy.
singleton: 1 if this is a singleton item, 0 if not.
included: 1 if the contract issuer has submitted this item with the contract, 0 if the isser is asking for this item in the contract.
"
Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#5 - 2013-01-23 12:36:27 UTC
way to tell me what I already knew

if you're so clever that it is obvious to you why that is so then please share your luminosity with us poor mortals
TheSkeptic
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2013-01-23 13:52:36 UTC
Kristoffon vonDrake wrote:
TheSkeptic wrote:
Not tried the call myself, but does this really not work?

http://wiki.eve-id.net/APIv2_Char_ContractItems_XML

It only works for item exchange contracts.

It fails for courier contracts.



Have you tested vs both accepted and pending courier contracts?

I can't investigate right now, might have a look tonight free time pending.

If it is only accepted courier contracts not displaying the items I'd wager that it's because you technically no longer own the items until the contract is completed and the items are returned to you.

...

Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#7 - 2013-01-23 16:16:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Kristoffon vonDrake
> Have you tested vs both accepted and pending courier contracts?

Yes. The api returns "invalid contract" IIRC. I do not see why accepted contracts should be any different, I still own the items until the contract is broken at least the way I see it. It would not make sense to account as owning the collateral as it is a minor percentage of contracts that ever pay the collateral instead of returning the contents and couriers (at least public ones) tend to have excess collateral, and private couriers often have no collateral at all.
TheSkeptic
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2013-01-23 16:23:05 UTC
Yeah, while I somewhat agree. I'd just not be surprised if it didn't work that way because physically as far as the game goes. Plastic wrap is just a container with items inside it, and once accepted is possessed by whoever accepted the contract.

Will try to have a quick look and test of this tonight when I get home from work, even if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

...

Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#9 - 2013-01-23 16:46:24 UTC
Even then the plastic wrap has to be linked to the contract, and vice-versa too otherwise tell me where it's held until it's accepted, so there's nothing stopping the game from listing its contents.
TheSkeptic
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2013-01-23 18:50:54 UTC  |  Edited by: TheSkeptic
So I did some testing with this and this is what I've found so far:

I created 2 courier contracts set to different characters.
1 accepted the other was just left pending.

I can call /char/Contracts.xml.aspx and see both contracts

However when I call /char/ContractItems.xml.aspx with the contractID's (seperate calls)
I always get the following error:

error code="134" Invalid or missing contractID.

Not sure if this is a bug or working as intended? :/ Seems odd both contracts would return this.

Also as suspected. The contract that has been accepted shows up in the acceptors AssetList with the typeID="3468" (Plastic Wrap) and lists the contracts contents.

Louis Vitton wrote:
Note that items for courier contracts are not displayed.


shame... Would be curious what the reasons behind this are

...

iskflakes
#11 - 2013-01-23 22:10:14 UTC
I encountered the same problem when making my asset valuation website (link). I decided to use the collateral value to estimate the value of a courier contract. Perhaps you could try the same?

As for pricing BPOs, I don't have a good way to do it. I just look at the current NPC prices and use them.

-
Louis Vitton
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2013-01-23 22:59:06 UTC
Kristoffon vonDrake wrote:
way to tell me what I already knew

if you're so clever that it is obvious to you why that is so then please share your luminosity with us poor mortals


lets start with relax mate.
That post was placed there to show people that bye design the courier contract items cannot be looked up in the API currently.
if you want a 100% answer petition the API with the devs and they will get back to you.
Ydnari
Estrale Frontiers
#13 - 2013-01-24 10:16:08 UTC
Items in courier contracts through the API was one of the first things i mentioned as not working when the API went into beta testing, as I have the same issue as you with assets disappearing into a void whilst they're on courier.

See http://community.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1563418&page=1#9 posts 9 & 13

Dev response on #13 was "As for not displaying items for courier contracts - this is something we wanted to re-iterate on when we get everyone involved back from summer holidays Cool, we'll keep you posted on any changes there."

That was in 2011.

--
Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#14 - 2013-01-24 12:06:30 UTC
So it seems it's about time to pester them to get this fixed.
Huang Mo
Tianxia Inc
#15 - 2013-02-19 12:28:40 UTC
It is sad courier contract items are missing.

Have the devs have made any promises about fixing it ? Or do they even know about the issue ?
Squizz Caphinator
The Wormhole Police
#16 - 2013-02-19 14:15:22 UTC
Have you considered that items being couriered are currently not owned by you? While the courier contact is accepted, the character accepting that contract is the new owner of those items and will remain the owner of those items until that character fulfills the contract (or does something else with the items).

Various projects I enjoy putting my free time into:

https://zkillboard.com | https://evewho.com
Kristoffon vonDrake
Forceful Resource Acquisition Inc
#17 - 2013-02-19 14:21:35 UTC
Squizz, how about you read threads before posting in them? It'll be less embarassing.

Huang I'm pretty sure they are aware they read this forum.