Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Keep in mind that the shipper/shipping company, IRL would have his own insurance to cover any unforseen losses. We dont have that in EVE. Only the client is covered by way of collateral. This idea is to balance things out for the cargo pilot as well, not just the client. As it stands now, the shipper is at a disadvantage while the client is covered 100%. The present state of hauling contratcs also leaves the shipper open for scams.



And how is that a bad thing? I would love to see competition and more hauling corps come into existence fighting for your hauling needs. More hauling corps will be formed and as I said before, people wil still use public hauling services.

I only know of Red Frog and PUSH. In all of EVE there should be dozens of hauling corps fighting for your business. My idea will make it so. Moreso, it may actually carve out hauling territories in New Eden and even prompt territory wars by hauling corps. Fun times dude, and just becuase hauling has now become competetive and profitable.

Yeah, no. You're completely confused about how things work in the real world (and EVE).

The reason you pay more in the real world to ship a container of gold vs cotton balls would be:

a) Fuel costs due to the larger mass involved, possibly requiring special equipment if you exceed the standard maximum weights for shipping containers. (Or you split your load up across multiple containers / trailers.) EVE has no concept of shipping mass, nor fuel costs for normal jump gates. Even jump freighters only care about distance traveled, not mass hauled.

b) Insurance. If you want to ship 1B dollars of gold across the country, and have it insured against theft / loss, then you're going to pay some percentage of the value in shipping insurance. Or require that the shipper post a bond equal to the value of the shipment. In EVE, we call this "collateral" which is there to prevent the shipper from running off with your stuff.

Once you get past those 2 variables, the only other factor which determines shipment costs are:

c) Load size. How many trips it will take you to move the load from A to B. In the case of less dense items, this is limited by the volume of the container. For denser items in the real world, you're limited by the carrying capacity of the container / trailer / tractor. We have this concept in EVE and it's called "cargo space".

d) Distance. How long will it take for the driver to get from A to B and will you have to pay for deadhead time on the way back. In the real world, we have distances (per-mile rate) or just pay by the hour (hourly rate). In EVE, this is most easily calculated as # of jumps, because the time spent between gates isn't all that long (most of the time is spent getting the freighter aligned). It's also really hard to figure out exactly how many jumps + lightyears between gates + alignment time - so we just approximate as "# of jumps".

Now, you could *try* to charge your customers a 7.5% premium based on the overall collateral to move something, but most folks are going to tell you go pound sand. It's not worth 75M ISK to move 1B of goods unless I'm in a tearing hurry.

This does not need to be added to the game. The courier contract system is fine "as-is" and the fact that there are at least (2) full-time hauling companies (PUSH and Red Frog Freight) shows that it's working. Not to mention the dozens of smaller haulers who survive on networking with customers and have private clientele.

I dont get what your problem here is.

I state that we will see an elimination of public contracts using your massive jump in costs idea but you think this is ok because we will have private contracts that will do precisely what public contracts do now, with the one problem that the majority of small and independent haulers will have nothing to haul as no one will use public contracts any more.

Final word from me is current system is one of the few things in EVE that is working absolutely fine and has no need to change.

i gota comment. I have a real hard time following the argument against this idea. would someone really post a bond of over 1 Billion in currency, without getting paid a considerable amount in exchange??? the percentage of people who can earn over 1b in eve outways that potential in RL.. there is only what, 1% or less of the human population that has that kind of money?

I do see how having a fixed rate may not work in some situations. possibly have the percentage be affected by certian attributes of the contract. example: distances, does the shortest distance pass through low or null sec.

When it comes down to it, there is not really arguable reasons against such a change. i understand the need to keep things a sandbox. but it feels like only the scammers are the ones who truly want this left alone. yeah, you can take advantage of noobs, and try to move your stuff cheaply, but thats too easy.... every argument i ever had about this game, it seemed, was about making the game more dynamic and challenging to play. theres gota be hundreds of people who posts scam contracts with the off chance someone may "accidentally" accept it. its just weak in my opinion is all.

lastly, im going to have to agree with the OP one more time. i do not think such a change would "eliminate" currier contracts. and if people chose to use private contracts and find "clientel" all the better.

If you feel that the reward is not enough, then don't accept the contract. Someone else will . . .


As I have posted before, I use public contracts to move all of my industrial materials (usually to/from a major trade hub if not between them). I run maybe 4-10 shipments per week, EVERY OFFER I EVER MADE HAS BEEN ACCEPTED

My standard rates are 100-200K / Jump (depending upon volume) for less than about 1 billion.

For collateral above 1 billion, I pay about 0.15%-0.45% of the collateral (depending upon the volume).


From my results, it looks like I am overpaying, but I like having my goods delivered and like keeping my contract slots available.

-FM

RF does not have a monopoly - otherwise how do you explain PUSH? At best, they have a duopoly.

Why are they so successful and why do they get so much business?

- Good word of mouth advertising and reputation.
- A standard fee schedule, which means I can predict my shipping expenses
- Professional level of service (no drama, both have good completion times, etc)

There is no "establsihed" monopoly in shipping, only the lack of effort for someone else to attempt to out-compete RF and PUSH.

In short, there's no problem here with the courier market - you just need to be smart about which contracts you accept, pay close attention to routing / over-inflated collaterals and other obvious traps.

Red Frog doesn't have a monopoly. Not even close. There are currently at least 4 courier companies in operation and a LOT more hauling pilots engaged in private, long term deals with particular industrialists. In the same breath that you advocate for higher wages for hauler pilots, you're asserting that people could use the 7.5% as a measure to pay LESS, not MORE. You've made the case to push business to private corps, whose management you're advocating then engage in price wars, with the end result that the hauler gets the same crappy pay they would have gotten in the first place.

Also, why exactly did you insert the statement "Red Frog does not own eve"? Talk to anyone who knows. Not only are we totally neutral, we have a strict no combat policy, and we actively encourage competition. There's plenty of hauling for everyone. We've stated that publicly many times. Red Frog is mentioned so much because we've been around so long. It's odd that someone would try to lay the state of the public contract market at our feet, when the only reason such crappy contracts are put up is that haulers keep taking them.

But all that aside, your response doesn't address my specific examples of the 50 jump pittance of a fee and the same system reward jackpot. Why would anyone pay 150 million to move 2 bill worth of stuff from one station to another? That's more than Black Frog charges for delivering to the most distant NPC nosec in EVE.

This all kind of pointless though; CCP is never going to institute anything like set pricing.

you still havn't answered his question.

I can't see why anyone would ask a cargo hauler to carry a skill book for 30 jumps when it would fit in a shuttle, align quickly and fly at rocket speed.

But let's look at it. Would you haul something like a skillbook for 30 jumps for 400K ISK?

It would be a ludicrous job for a hauler.




And thus we get paid per jump. The collateral is our risk, in securing the cargo. The distance (jumps) determines how much we get paid. And the collateral is the senders' insurance that we won't steal their cargo.

It seems fair to me; we're being paid for the work we do. It is the cargo pilot's choice to carry the risk or not.

The real problem we have in eve is that haulers have no way of offering their services, in contracts, and have them directly affect the prices the costumer has to pay.

I mean, of course when starting, you have to take what there is available, but even there, moving around with a cargo worth 400m (or at least thats what the collateral said, the guy could be lying) for a mere 1 or 2 million or less is really not worth it.

Again, if those were only some contracts here and there, no problem there. the problem is that every contracts are like that.

I guess being in corps that specialize in courrier and has contacts and good standings with other corps do get better prices for a better collateral thats more worth what's being hauled.

However, it does make it hard for starting in the business.