Market Discussions

Welp, I've my first failed contract. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but what surprises me is the lack of information.

I made a contract to move something from LS black rise to HS hub, for later transport to amarr. I check contracts today and it is failed. Out of curiosity, I forgot what was on the contract, I open the contract to see what it was moving.

IT SHOWS NOTHING!

Is this an oversight or something? A contract owner should definitely be able to review what was in the contract. Reviewing it though it looks like it failed because I accidentally put too low collateral on it. Looks like the guy opened the package since there are no lossmails for that player.

I'm thinking #1. No KM losse, and there was time left to fulfill the contract. It looks like a forgot a few zeros on the collateral. A 200k collateral package doesn't sound worth moving. Normally I'd just trash something worth that little if it wasn't worth the travel time.

I'm just wondering if there really is an oversight here, or there is some way to review the contract and find what I lost that I'm not finding. It's 13m3 so I'm thinking maybe it was some expensive ammo. /sigh.

Yea, well when I realized the collateral was set so low, it almost begs to be opened. 200k isk, why not open it?

Confirming yes it's rather ridiculous that one cannot see inside a courier package. The issuer of the contract should have the ability to see inside wrap. The way i've gotten around this personally in the past(on occasion) is by contracting the goods to myself just prior to making the courier contract. This way I had a record. Generally though if I put enough collateral on the contract I don't need to worry about it because it's essentially been sold for what it's worth to me.
If the contract has goods that are very important that I require then I attach an isk value to the importance of the items.

Best way to play it safe is to ask yourself what price would it take for me to be happy that this shipment was ganked.

It's really annoying that the contract api doesn't expose the underlying assets. I recently had one failed contract which was closely collateralized but if I were off 50mil on a 1bil 8mil delivery I can see how it would get scooped. But it's not easy being a douche because when you pick up a contract and everything is in order, you have to deliver it or you wind up paying me that 50-100mil. The failed contractee hasn't picked up one since so he probably figured out it sucks to ship 99% of contracts to scoop 42mil. I fire off something like 3000+ contracts a year and I lost a few to typos, and one to a small underestimation. I am a bit of a target because if a contract comes from me at 10mil collateral, it's a guaranteed billion isk profit, and the funny thing is there's a douche that still carts my high collateral stuff around so he won one, but he's the one grinding freighter jumps like a *****. (Hi Fifi Rubberbutt)

It would be nice to have a setting where negative standings can't pick up my contracts. But it wouldn't matter because SJ Astralana 10mil contracts are like winning lottery tickets. Ah well. Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Sometimes, you collateralize at 103% and the price of the goods increase before it is done.

I've seen that happen.

Shrug, I'm just messing around. Scanning contracts for the inevitable periodic screwups is not my idea of fun. Even if it might be profitably worth it.