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Breaking News: Citadel/Plex Contracting.

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Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#241 - 2017-05-24 20:29:49 UTC
Scialt wrote:
How is it possible to make a delivery to a citadel if they lock you out after you accept?

rather easily once they understand that you will burn their space house to the ground unless they stop taking the micky.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
Coralas
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#242 - 2017-05-24 21:21:55 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
Coralas wrote:

The price for high collateral hauls are higher than low collateral hauls because less pilots can take them.
The price for hauls to citadels will probably also wind up higher than hauls to stations.
A higher price matters not in the least.

If there is a mechanic in place that allows the possibility for you to lose your collateral with no way to avoid it, you have to assume that every contract is a scam. So people stop accepting haul to citadel runs. Period.



ah no, if you are averaging double your pay by taking these jobs, there is a point in the future where you'll have earned back your collateral + sufficient extra that you'll still be ahead if you then fail to identify that one contract is a scam. The game then is all about the efficiency of your scam identification, rather than the perfection of your scam identification.

Another way to think about this, is my stratios is fit at 500m isk. I use it for lowsec content, its earned 10b isk. if I did just highsec content, I might have earned 8b in the same time, at this point if I lose my stratios, I'm still ahead. If the pay difference is very high, such points come about more quickly.

Quote:


No biggie for the haulers. But not so great for the citadel owners. They'd kind of like to have a viable enterprise running. It's why they set one up in the first place.

Mr Epeen Cool


There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#243 - 2017-05-24 21:29:54 UTC
Scialt wrote:
1. As it is, the ability to lock out those making deliveries (and the scams built around that ability) make it difficult if not impossible to get a hauling contract accepted to a citadel. This hurts those who would like to use courier contracts to supply their citadels who would prefer to have other players willing to accept their contracts.


Then pay more. There is more risk, so you'll have to pay more.

The one time where we can argue legitimately risk vs. reward and you completely fumble it. Is it more risky to deliver to a citadel? Yes. So....you should pay more to have people deliver your courier contracts. At least until you have established your reputation as being reliable.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#244 - 2017-05-24 21:36:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Coralas wrote:

The price for high collateral hauls are higher than low collateral hauls because less pilots can take them.
The price for hauls to citadels will probably also wind up higher than hauls to stations.
A higher price matters not in the least.

If there is a mechanic in place that allows the possibility for you to lose your collateral with no way to avoid it, you have to assume that every contract is a scam. So people stop accepting haul to citadel runs. Period.



ah no, if you are averaging double your pay by taking these jobs, there is a point in the future where you'll have earned back your collateral + sufficient extra that you'll still be ahead if you then fail to identify that one contract is a scam. The game then is all about the efficiency of your scam identification, rather than the perfection of your scam identification.

Another way to think about this, is my stratios is fit at 500m isk. I use it for lowsec content, its earned 10b isk. if I did just highsec content, I might have earned 8b in the same time, at this point if I lose my stratios, I'm still ahead. If the pay difference is very high, such points come about more quickly.


This is correct. If you are looking at 2 courier contracts, one to an NPC station and another to a citadel and they have the same collateral/reward then you should always pick the NPC station one. The reason is that when you adjust for risk the citadel contract is priced lower.

Edit:

And yes, the answer is "do not take the citadel contract." Those who do want to use a courier service will simply have to adapt and pay more. If they don't then no courier service from them.

I wonder, are those complaining about this scam doing courier contracts and don't want to have to do such thinking or are they citadel owners who want to get cheaper courier services...?

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#245 - 2017-05-24 21:44:54 UTC
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Coralas wrote:

The price for high collateral hauls are higher than low collateral hauls because less pilots can take them.
The price for hauls to citadels will probably also wind up higher than hauls to stations.
A higher price matters not in the least.

If there is a mechanic in place that allows the possibility for you to lose your collateral with no way to avoid it, you have to assume that every contract is a scam. So people stop accepting haul to citadel runs. Period.



ah no, if you are averaging double your pay by taking these jobs, there is a point in the future where you'll have earned back your collateral + sufficient extra that you'll still be ahead if you then fail to identify that one contract is a scam. The game then is all about the efficiency of your scam identification, rather than the perfection of your scam identification.

Another way to think about this, is my stratios is fit at 500m isk. I use it for lowsec content, its earned 10b isk. if I did just highsec content, I might have earned 8b in the same time, at this point if I lose my stratios, I'm still ahead. If the pay difference is very high, such points come about more quickly.

Quote:


No biggie for the haulers. But not so great for the citadel owners. They'd kind of like to have a viable enterprise running. It's why they set one up in the first place.

Mr Epeen Cool


There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool
Coralas
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#246 - 2017-05-24 22:03:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Coralas
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't. The only question then is how many jobs you can do between scams, which will be somewhere between few and infinite depending on your willingness to check on the issuer and the citadel.

Haulers in fact have plenty of leverage by not taking jobs. The JF pilot I worked with when I lived in Vale, delivered to 3 stations, with no collateral, take it or leave it, pay him at the rate he feels like.

Another way to look at it, is that if people get scammed like this, because they are not checking, then they'll be removing themselves from the competition for the jobs through not having collateral anymore, which allows the remaining pilots to dictate more terms.
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#247 - 2017-05-24 22:44:35 UTC
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Scialt wrote:
How is it possible to make a delivery to a citadel if they lock you out after you accept?

rather easily once they understand that you will burn their space house to the ground unless they stop taking the micky.




How much is a contract compared to what is lost in these scams? Would it be cost effective to burn down these houses of ill repute and send the scammer a Hellraiser quote so he won't forget? (something something.... "suffering will be legendary, even in hell" something something)

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#248 - 2017-05-24 23:23:51 UTC
Herzog Wolfhammer wrote:
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Scialt wrote:
How is it possible to make a delivery to a citadel if they lock you out after you accept?

rather easily once they understand that you will burn their space house to the ground unless they stop taking the micky.




How much is a contract compared to what is lost in these scams? Would it be cost effective to burn down these houses of ill repute and send the scammer a Hellraiser quote so he won't forget? (something something.... "suffering will be legendary, even in hell" something something)

well yeah, you should only have to do it once.

are you going to **** around with a courier thats a proven arsonist?

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#249 - 2017-05-25 00:22:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't. The only question then is how many jobs you can do between scams, which will be somewhere between few and infinite depending on your willingness to check on the issuer and the citadel.

Haulers in fact have plenty of leverage by not taking jobs. The JF pilot I worked with when I lived in Vale, delivered to 3 stations, with no collateral, take it or leave it, pay him at the rate he feels like.

Another way to look at it, is that if people get scammed like this, because they are not checking, then they'll be removing themselves from the competition for the jobs through not having collateral anymore, which allows the remaining pilots to dictate more terms.


Yup.

Bogus numbers to illustrate the point:

Hauling to an NPC station has a reward of 100, and collateral of 200. This is the zero risk return (setting aside the risk of ganking).

Suppose hauling to a citadel entails a scam rate of 10%. Now, how much must the contract be so you earn at least the zero risk return. There are two parts to this calculation. Because of the risk you'll want a higher reward even if there is not scam. To determine this you'll want at least 100/.9 or 111.11. And because there is a chance you'll lose the collateral you'll also want to add on 200*(1/9) or 22.222. So your total reward would have to be 133.34. At that reward you should be indifferent between hauling between a citadel and an NPC station.

Nobody should be hauling to a citadel until the reward covers the risk. So when people complain, "Oh, but then no hauling to a citadel is not good." No, it is. It is exactly what should happen when haulers are prudent and citadel owners are not offering a high enough reward. Working as intended. Exactly as intended.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#250 - 2017-05-25 00:32:00 UTC
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Herzog Wolfhammer wrote:
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Scialt wrote:
How is it possible to make a delivery to a citadel if they lock you out after you accept?

rather easily once they understand that you will burn their space house to the ground unless they stop taking the micky.




How much is a contract compared to what is lost in these scams? Would it be cost effective to burn down these houses of ill repute and send the scammer a Hellraiser quote so he won't forget? (something something.... "suffering will be legendary, even in hell" something something)

well yeah, you should only have to do it once.

are you going to **** around with a courier thats a proven arsonist?



No I would be very nice to such a courier. If be barged in and dipped his balls in the gravy I'd pretend it didn't happen and just not have gravy.

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#251 - 2017-05-25 00:46:10 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't. The only question then is how many jobs you can do between scams, which will be somewhere between few and infinite depending on your willingness to check on the issuer and the citadel.

Haulers in fact have plenty of leverage by not taking jobs. The JF pilot I worked with when I lived in Vale, delivered to 3 stations, with no collateral, take it or leave it, pay him at the rate he feels like.

Another way to look at it, is that if people get scammed like this, because they are not checking, then they'll be removing themselves from the competition for the jobs through not having collateral anymore, which allows the remaining pilots to dictate more terms.


Yup.

Bogus numbers to illustrate the point:

Hauling to an NPC station has a reward of 100, and collateral of 200. This is the zero risk return (setting aside the risk of ganking).

Suppose hauling to a citadel entails a scam rate of 10%. Now, how much must the contract be so you earn at least the zero risk return. There are two parts to this calculation. Because of the risk you'll want a higher reward even if there is not scam. To determine this you'll want at least 100/.9 or 111.11. And because there is a chance you'll lose the collateral you'll also want to add on 200*(1/9) or 22.222. So your total reward would have to be 133.34. At that reward you should be indifferent between hauling between a citadel and an NPC station.

Nobody should be hauling to a citadel until the reward covers the risk. So when people complain, "Oh, but then no hauling to a citadel is not good." No, it is. It is exactly what should happen when haulers are prudent and citadel owners are not offering a high enough reward. Working as intended. Exactly as intended.
One of the first things you look for as a hauler is a contract offering a high payment for a relatively low collateral. That sets off the scam radar.

So you two set up your little citadels and see how long it takes before someone accepts those contracts.

The only way to get stuff to your citadel at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time is to have the stuff dropped of at a nearby NPC station and move it the last hop by yourself. If you set up a citadel in a system with no NPC station and intend to run manufacturing with any chance of turning a profit, I feel for you.

Mr Epeen Cool
Coralas
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#252 - 2017-05-25 01:37:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Coralas
Mr Epeen wrote:
One of the first things you look for as a hauler is a contract offering a high payment for a relatively low collateral. That sets off the scam radar.

So you two set up your little citadels and see how long it takes before someone accepts those contracts.

The only way to get stuff to your citadel at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time is to have the stuff dropped of at a nearby NPC station and move it the last hop by yourself. If you set up a citadel in a system with no NPC station and intend to run manufacturing with any chance of turning a profit, I feel for you.

Mr Epeen Cool


eh ?

if you keep low value scamming, you wind up with character recycling tasks (probably borderline on the rules), or a long history of failed courier contracts which is the actual thing that should set off the scamdar.

people have been doing local self hauls from a station to a pos for more than a decade, and a 1 gate haul isn't much more effort than a local haul, and anyone living in null is pretty much going to be resigned to doing a few hops (possibly by jump bridge) if they don't own their own jump freighter. Getting your stuff hauled straight to your ec is a very modern convenience, and not a necessity for a profit.

The real effort inefficiency for self hauling comes in when you personally want to source items from locations that you won't sell items in - which means either you have to find couriers to make both directions useful - or run your ship in ballast one way. If you are self hauling from the point that your contracts all land at (consolidation), its likely that it will be efficient trips.

When you issue a public contract it stays on your character record, which means if I made my structure publicly accessible and got things couriered to me, I'd expect that eventually as my personal record got longer and more impossible to fake, that more haulers would trust my contracts.

IMO the whole point to citadels is to bring in trust related gameplay.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#253 - 2017-05-25 05:12:55 UTC
Mr Epeen wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't. The only question then is how many jobs you can do between scams, which will be somewhere between few and infinite depending on your willingness to check on the issuer and the citadel.

Haulers in fact have plenty of leverage by not taking jobs. The JF pilot I worked with when I lived in Vale, delivered to 3 stations, with no collateral, take it or leave it, pay him at the rate he feels like.

Another way to look at it, is that if people get scammed like this, because they are not checking, then they'll be removing themselves from the competition for the jobs through not having collateral anymore, which allows the remaining pilots to dictate more terms.


Yup.

Bogus numbers to illustrate the point:

Hauling to an NPC station has a reward of 100, and collateral of 200. This is the zero risk return (setting aside the risk of ganking).

Suppose hauling to a citadel entails a scam rate of 10%. Now, how much must the contract be so you earn at least the zero risk return. There are two parts to this calculation. Because of the risk you'll want a higher reward even if there is not scam. To determine this you'll want at least 100/.9 or 111.11. And because there is a chance you'll lose the collateral you'll also want to add on 200*(1/9) or 22.222. So your total reward would have to be 133.34. At that reward you should be indifferent between hauling between a citadel and an NPC station.

Nobody should be hauling to a citadel until the reward covers the risk. So when people complain, "Oh, but then no hauling to a citadel is not good." No, it is. It is exactly what should happen when haulers are prudent and citadel owners are not offering a high enough reward. Working as intended. Exactly as intended.
One of the first things you look for as a hauler is a contract offering a high payment for a relatively low collateral. That sets off the scam radar.

So you two set up your little citadels and see how long it takes before someone accepts those contracts.

The only way to get stuff to your citadel at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time is to have the stuff dropped of at a nearby NPC station and move it the last hop by yourself. If you set up a citadel in a system with no NPC station and intend to run manufacturing with any chance of turning a profit, I feel for you.

Mr Epeen Cool



Yes, if scamming is large enough, the the cost of couriers can become prohibitive. That can be seen with the numbers I have provided. A 10% scam rate leads to contract prices that are 33% higher. A 20% scam rate and the contract price has to be 75% in that numerical example. But in that case you will likely have no legitimate courier contracts the only thing left will be scams. Which means either players are just being vanilla stupid who are falling for them, or scamming will become far less common making it possible to start up courier contracts again.

And building a reputation of trust should be expensive.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Salvos Rhoska
#254 - 2017-05-25 09:10:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
There is some validity to arguing that changing standings/access to Citadels is too "easy" in that it takes effect immediately.

I dont mean this specifically regarding this scam, but overall the ease and potency of being able to change the Citadels disposition to other players immediately with just a few clicks.

Perhaps a 1-6hr delay to allow for some reaction time.

PvE v PvP <> Old School Exploration <> CODE Licenses <> CODE Special Agent
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#255 - 2017-05-25 09:39:14 UTC
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't.

I could be wrong but delivery contracts rarely pay more than 10 mil. And last time i checked such offers usually indicated scam (destination is high-sec in some island in low-sec area).

Having this in mind i wonder how many contracts you HAVE TO have successfully finished to make your "1 billion ISK" to cover "that one 800mil scam"? 100? And if you only get 1 scam per those 100 "delivery to player citadel" contracts I guess this thread would not be created at all.

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"
Scialt
Universal Sanitation Corporation
#256 - 2017-05-25 13:00:37 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Scialt wrote:
1. As it is, the ability to lock out those making deliveries (and the scams built around that ability) make it difficult if not impossible to get a hauling contract accepted to a citadel. This hurts those who would like to use courier contracts to supply their citadels who would prefer to have other players willing to accept their contracts.


Then pay more. There is more risk, so you'll have to pay more.

The one time where we can argue legitimately risk vs. reward and you completely fumble it. Is it more risky to deliver to a citadel? Yes. So....you should pay more to have people deliver your courier contracts. At least until you have established your reputation as being reliable.


It's not about risk... it's about being possible.

I know if I run a lvl 5 mission in low-sec there's more danger. But if I watch local, watch my d-scan and get ready to bolt if they indicate a dangerous situation... I can feel like despite the risk I could succeed. I might not... they might trap me and kill me... but I have the POSSIBILITY of succeeding.

If you have the ability to lock someone out of the citadel as soon as they accept a contract, there no longer is a possibility of success. That's why I keep going back to having a counter. The point of risk vs reward is there has to be a possibility of a reward. In this scenario there isn't even a conceivable way to succeed... and to me that's the problem. If I can deliver the package and you take me deep into null... I'm probably going to die. But I COULD succeed. If you do the same thing and the citadel has locked me out when I get there... my chance of success is now zero. Even if I brought a thousand friends to escort me.

It should never be zero. I think there should always be a way to succeed if someone had unlimited resources. Heck... even if you let the corp delivering the package immediately destroy the citadel without waiting for timers... that would at least give them a chance (because destroying a citadel before the timer on the contract is up will cause the delivery to switch to the asset safety location of the contract issuer... which has to be a NPC station). At least that gives them the possibility of not losing their collateral. That would of course add other issues (pirate corps accepting contracts for the sole purpose of destroying citadels)... but at least there would be a possible counter other than simply not playing.
Benje en Divalone
#257 - 2017-05-25 13:18:26 UTC
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Scialt wrote:
How is it possible to make a delivery to a citadel if they lock you out after you accept?

rather easily once they understand that you will burn their space house to the ground unless they stop taking the micky.

When space houses cost a mere 500m isk and the scam collat is 8b... "already paid for" comes to mind.
Scialt
Universal Sanitation Corporation
#258 - 2017-05-25 13:19:43 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Coralas wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Quote:

There are lots of citadels, with lots of individual owner strategies. Scamming is one of them. Having the advantage of having more haulers willing to haul to my personal citadel because I don't scam with it, is another.
A lot of wishful thinking here. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.

But why not take the same scenario and look at it from the haulers side?

Haul more for less in 100% safety (less the usual ganking risk, but that's a risk you can mitigate somewhat), or haul to citadels and possibly lose your 800,000,000 isk collateral?

If you choose the citadel option, then you are living in a dreamworld, Neo.

Mr Epeen Cool


The pay rate matters. If you earn 1b extra taking on citadel delivery jobs, and then lose the 800m, you are 200m ahead of someone that doesn't. The only question then is how many jobs you can do between scams, which will be somewhere between few and infinite depending on your willingness to check on the issuer and the citadel.

Haulers in fact have plenty of leverage by not taking jobs. The JF pilot I worked with when I lived in Vale, delivered to 3 stations, with no collateral, take it or leave it, pay him at the rate he feels like.

Another way to look at it, is that if people get scammed like this, because they are not checking, then they'll be removing themselves from the competition for the jobs through not having collateral anymore, which allows the remaining pilots to dictate more terms.


Yup.

Bogus numbers to illustrate the point:

Hauling to an NPC station has a reward of 100, and collateral of 200. This is the zero risk return (setting aside the risk of ganking).

Suppose hauling to a citadel entails a scam rate of 10%. Now, how much must the contract be so you earn at least the zero risk return. There are two parts to this calculation. Because of the risk you'll want a higher reward even if there is not scam. To determine this you'll want at least 100/.9 or 111.11. And because there is a chance you'll lose the collateral you'll also want to add on 200*(1/9) or 22.222. So your total reward would have to be 133.34. At that reward you should be indifferent between hauling between a citadel and an NPC station.

Nobody should be hauling to a citadel until the reward covers the risk. So when people complain, "Oh, but then no hauling to a citadel is not good." No, it is. It is exactly what should happen when haulers are prudent and citadel owners are not offering a high enough reward. Working as intended. Exactly as intended.


The problem is your numbers aren't very realistic.

Let's look at Red Frog's prices (because they have a handy internet calculator for such things).

Jita->Amarr
845,000m cargo max
1bn collateral

Price 17,000,000 isk

That's the reality of courier pricing.

Now using your math... same route but destination is a Citadel in Amarr.
10% chance of scam.

17m * .10 = 1.7m
1bn * .10 = 100m

17 + 1.7 + 100 = 118.7m.... vs 17m

I'd also argue the number is well above 10%... but that's what it would be at 10%.

Scialt
Universal Sanitation Corporation
#259 - 2017-05-25 13:25:05 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:



Yes, if scamming is large enough, the the cost of couriers can become prohibitive. That can be seen with the numbers I have provided. A 10% scam rate leads to contract prices that are 33% higher. A 20% scam rate and the contract price has to be 75% in that numerical example. But in that case you will likely have no legitimate courier contracts the only thing left will be scams. Which means either players are just being vanilla stupid who are falling for them, or scamming will become far less common making it possible to start up courier contracts again.

And building a reputation of trust should be expensive.


See my earlier post. Your 33% number is flawed because your "normal" reward is half of the collateral... which is totally unrealistic.

Red Frog's quote for a Jita to Amarr haul is 17m for 1bn collateral.

You are assuming 50% reward for the safe haul. It's actually a return of closer to 2%.

If you add in 100m (for the 10% chance to lose a billion in collateral)... that makes the increase in price closer to 5-600%... not 33%.
Scialt
Universal Sanitation Corporation
#260 - 2017-05-25 13:36:37 UTC
baltec1 wrote:

Scialt wrote:

Having an exterior delivery container seems like something that could be implemented relatively easily (given that we have similar mechanics already in the game). I don't really see how this hurts anyone other than people running one particular scam.

I guess the question is... what's the downside? "Tradition?"


Eliminating content just so you don't have to put in any effort or face any risk is not good for the game. We need more content not less and yes, this scam is content.


You seriously view a scam as... content?

Ooookay.....

I mean I don't really care about the "double your isk" or "Buy gecko's for 1 million" scam in market hubs... but viewing that as content seems... idiotic. I don't think ignoring those folks actually adds anything. I don't think ignoring courier missions to citadels does either... in fact it REMOVES contents as those players will NOT be making those deliveries.