Science & Industry

Capsuleers are supposed to be the pinnacle of society, yet we often find ourselves caught up in such remedial tasks as ferrying goods from space station to space station, even if these stations are in the same system. Why? CCP recently polished many aspects of Industry, so here is my 2 cents on this neglected subject.


Specifically, I am recommending a system be implemented that would allow the automated transfer of goods between planets, for a price.


Now for a bit of background, I actually work at an intermodal trucking company as a coordinator/dispatcher, and thus you could say I do have a bit of unique insight into the following subject:

-Basically you should be allowed to set up (possibly in the Spaceport Menu) "links" to other planets (I'll refer to them as "Lanes" to reduce ambiguity) in the same system.

-Based on the distance (in AU) of the lane there would be a base shipping fee. This fee would then be expanded to include import/export taxes for both planets rates at time of purchase. This of course means you would be required to specify exactly what the cargo will be and how much of it (total) you will be transferring. Once put in place the lane will remain active and begin to transfer goods at a specific rate from one spaceport on one planet to another spaceport on the other. After the quota has been reached the lane will go inactive until the contract is renewed/extended. The maximum value/capacity of the contract should be enough to allow at least 2 weeks of solid transfer in any/all scenarios.

-The maximum rate of transfer (well, quantity per cycle) of goods would be dictated by the level of the space station and imports would be separate from exports (to simulate the potential for reloading). That said, each cubic meter of one would automatically also count as about 0.5 to 0.75 cubic meters of the other to also simulate the difficulty in finding matching reloads.

-Each active lane of every pilot would contribute towards a planetary congestion variable which as it rose would 1) raise the rate for transferring goods to/from that planet (simulating supply/demand of logistical capacity) and 2) Apply a penalty to the transfer rate (or amount) of the lane. This would be similar to the concept of how multiple pilots drilling on the same parts of a planet affect one another marginally (at least as far as I know they do).

Again, this would be optional, and taking advantage of it would, of course, reduce your expected overall profits for PI by the amount of the linehaul fee and any premiums from supply/demand. The advantage is that you would only have to stop by 1 planet every so often to pick up the finished product, or to ship the products to a completely different system.


This would also make some solar systems where certain combinations of planets were common a bit more desirable...

Final note:
Ever notice the small ships occasionally buzzing around the customs offices? Well this would help add purpose to that animation.