Crime & Punishment

As a small corp operator I find that my ambitions often outstrip my firepower. With the coming wardec changes and perhaps even with DUST, I've started selecting targets and there are certain POS's I need removed and other specific one-of actions taken by a trusted (contracted) third party. I'm finding it annoying to find a terms and conditions of contracting certain merc corps. As a potential client, I'd like to gently suggest a few things that would make shopping around for a merc corp easier.

A Terms and Conditions Sheet
Linked on your organizations home page?

• Cost of POS hits (Assuming the pricing scheme is based on that, ie. what is the price to put a small/med/large POS in reinforced vs sec status and organizational affiliation)
• Cost of a specific mission (say I need a force to fight n³ ships at a specific date/time/location, or lets say there is some probability of interception for something else... is there a cost table I can refer to?)
• References (Who will vouch for your credibility / professionalism?)
• Achievements (Essentially to tell me what caliber of force you bring.)
• "End state" Offerings (Some Mercs might offer the ability to take sov or guarantee an opposing forces war capitulation, some kind of pricing scheme might be associated with this)
• Points of Contact (For the most part this is listed in corp details but just in case...)
• Availability (Because some of you are probably keeping busy with other stuff and might not be available right away)
• Blacklist (List of organizations you will not target for whatever reason)
• Bulk or other discounts (It is a business, after all)

Off the top of my head that would save some time... it might be helpful for CCP to sticky a Merc Corps list too. If anyone has other suggestions feel free to post. Thanks.

Alternatively, look around the forums. Some corporations deal specifically with certain situations (such as Narwhals dealing with wormholes, Orphans dealing with camping trade hubs). Don't make us do all the work. It's your ISK, so make sure you're spending it the way you want!

Even now, before the Merc market or whatever they end up calling it goes live, there are a LOT of small corp CEOs like myself looking around for MERCs and there is a lot of ISK they could be making. The problem is that a big portion of this hidden market is just not doing what they want to do because they can't find the right MERCs for the job. Conversely, there's a lot of small MERC corps out there struggling to make the ISK they deserve because they are unheard of. There has to be an easier way to bring these service providers and customers together. I appreciate the variety of MERC services available and the difficult of giving quotes, because there are always a few important variables the client forgot to mention, but right now there's nothing! I wonder how we could make a viable MERC marketplace...

Right. But that's a chat channel and all merc corps aren't monitoring it all the time. I'm trying to improve the situation... but if you think I'm pissing in the wind the least you could do is comment on my d***.

Let me put it this way.

You are the one coming to us. You are the one looking to spend your corporation's ISK to have mercenaries handle some troublemakers. If you are incapable of doing a cursory glance over the mercenary contract threads, then I don't know what to tell you. Contract officers and CEOs of these corporations work to make sure that their threads are up-to-date as well as chock-full of information for prospective clients to glance through and find out if the mercenary outfit might be what they are looking for.

Just on the first three pages:

Malum Crusis
Praetorian Cannibals
Narwhals Ate My Duck
The Ghost Army
The Angel of Death
PERCUSSIVE PIZZA TIME DIPLOMACY

Then you have the more well-known mercenary outfits like Noir., The 0rphanage, and other groups.

Mercenary outfits are not out there looking for you. That would take too much time. If you want competent mercenaries, do your own homework. At the end of the day, your decision will decide how well-spent your ISK was. Mercenary outfits can make promises, but if you don't do the basic research with regards to their threads, killboards, and what-not then it's all on you.

Thanks. These are all good tips. I'm (and by "I", I mean to speak as a generic client) am not afraid to do research, check kb's etc... but I'm just saying it would be easier if it was simply a matter of finding a sticky thread listing merc corps with links to their sites. I realize some might not want to put up prices up at all, and want to negotiate payment arrangements on a case-by-case basis. That makes perfect sense. I also know it's impossible for the mercs to go looking for clients. That would be really inefficient. However, I think mercs are denying themselves what I believe is a much larger client base and by extension a lot more ISK. Not to put too fine a point on it, but clients are the ones with the billions of ISK in our hand. We want to put it in yours. It would just be easier to do that if we knew who all is in the merc biz. Well-known groups like VETO are obviously super pro... but they don't need to list themselves anywhere b/c they are famous. They have also earned the right to charge a premium for their services, and are used to taking huge contracts. They are generally in a different market... specifically their target demo are well of corps and alliances. Sometimes instead of sledgehammer it makes sense to use a tack hammer. Smaller client corps are better off hiring smaller merc corps, and that is where the problem is because no one outside of the merc biz has heard of either. To get these smaller organizations working together it would make sense to centralize the merc offerings in some way. I am of the opinion this would increase the volume of clients that are aware of the smaller merc groups existence, and thus increase their client volume and ISK earnings. It's a win for both parties and broadens the smaller merc group industry / client base. Just my 2 isk...