Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Alert - Scammers, Scammer lovers, & Forum troll snowflakes.... Triggering idea follows, please retreat to your safe spaces.

---

Dear CCP,

As you may know couriers are very leery about delivering to Citadels (just as they have been to player controlled stations). As they should be, because you have allowed this sort of contract scamming to rule over those with legitimate game-play needs. The scammer merely need make a contract with worthless items, an enticing reward, and a high collateral and then restrict you from docking with the station / citadel. The contract fails, they get millions in collateral.

A simple solution to this problem is as follows.

If, when the courier attempts to dock with the destination station / citadel and is unable to due to some restriction, a flag is set which then allows the courier to jettison the cargo into space in a secure container tagged for the recipient in the destination system. This would count as a completed delivery. The recipient will then be notified that their items have been delivered in this fashion due to the courier being locked out of the station, with a bookmark to the container's location in the e-mail.

Meanwhile their package will be subject to being destroyed by anyone who comes across it. A valuable lesson learned if it was a legitimate delivery and the recipient failed to make their station / citadel open to docking.

...no, you cannot have a 'steal the cargo' button that completely negates the collateral.

There has been discussion about allowing couriers to tether and deliver their contracts. Not sure what the status is on this you might want to ask someone on the CSM.

Yeah but then you could camp in someone's station and they can't boot you.

Also I like the idea that your package (assuming it's legitimate) is vulnerable because you failed to provide docking rights to the courier.

Shouldn't have locked the mailman out then. :P

I'd rather see the delivery hangers get leveraged, so to speak.

Just like transferring stuff between a POCO and your cargo... you can access the delivery hanger, drop stuff in there, and it automatically gives ownership of the stuff to the contract issuer. Just right-click on the citadel, access delivery hanger, drop it in, and gtfo.

On the issue of tethering, I would say that you should be granted tether rights for so long as you have a contract. Once it is completed, the tether will simply not re-establish, but will be unbroken until you the player breaks the tether.

How do you steal something out of a locked secure container using guns?
Chance for destruction of the contents on destruction of the container and all.

1. No access to destination? Can't accept contract.
2. Want to deny access after contract was accepted? Sorry, can't do.

Done.

Edit: even better, considering this is EVE:

1. Give warning to player he might not have access to the destination.
2. Change access and contract is voided, but courier keeps the goods.

That's not the issue.
The issue is that I can do all the due diligence in the world, I can validate that I can dock there. I can even fly there and physically dock before I accept the contract, but once I accept it they can lock me out and I'm stuck.

That's why no one wants to deliver to Citadels. Because doing your homework ahead of time doesn't matter.

Edit to add: I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem. Player Owner Outposts in null have always worked that way, so no one really bothered trying. Citadels, however, are far more prolific, and can be put up anywhere which has, I think, made the issue more evident to more people, thus leading to the upsurge in CCPls threads.