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Courier contract question
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Andre Vauban
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-03-05 01:36:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Andre Vauban
How do folks deal with exchanging shrink wrapped courier contracs between characters? In my case I haul a courier contract in different legs and I then want to exchange the shrink wrap to a toon in a different Corp for the second leg. Think Jita to staging area on npc toon and then pc toon with standings for the second leg. The problem is I have is I had been doing item exchange contracts but if the shrink wrap contains a container, it is not allowed.

There is no way to tell before you accept a courier contract if it contains a container. It is a giant pain in the butt to get both chars to the same location to do a direct trade. Are there any other options?

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Tekota
The Freighter Factory
#2 - 2012-03-05 08:12:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Tekota
EDIT:Seems I really don't know what I'm talking about! Disregard my ramblings as per further posts below by Andre & Zaxix (and the Frogs really will be the definitive word on this topic)

Not 100% sure on this one, but can't you courier contract the courier contract? Ie initial NPC toon accepts contract from Jita to arse end of null but ships to staging area, unloads then sets up a private courier contract to your standings toon to ship the shrink wrapped courier contract to null. Standings toon then completes the private contract, initial NPC toon then completes the original contract?
Andre Vauban
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-03-05 13:41:19 UTC
That is what I used to do. However, you cannot create a contract with an item (ie courier shrink wrap) if that item contains a container. So if the original courier contract has a can in it, I'm out of luck. I just started hitting this as more folks starting putting cans in their courier contracts.

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Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#4 - 2012-03-05 14:32:01 UTC
I have done this myself. You just make a private courier contract to the character you want to do the other leg.

This is also useful for moving fitted ships through high sec that belong to the character who owns the freighter.

You can not put assembled ships into cargo but you can wrap them in a courier package to an alt then contract the package back allowing the owner to move the ships in a freighter. I do this all the time.

It would work equally well in your situation where you want to share the contract between several characters. The really nice benefit of doing this with private contracts is you can set the private contract for 0 isk reward and 0 isk collateral. If it is private to an alt, you know you will not rip off yourself, unless you are some demented RPer into self mutilation.
Velicitia
XS Tech
#5 - 2012-03-05 14:48:53 UTC
station trade maybe? or is the NPC alt toon not yours?

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Zaxix
State War Academy
Caldari State
#6 - 2012-03-05 16:34:23 UTC
As you've discovered, you can't put a courier contract inside another courier/item exchange contract if it has an assembled can inside it. Your only option is a station trade. This is not possible if both characters are on the same account (if you can't afford another account, but you have two computers, you can use a trial account alt for the handoff). If you have two accounts, there are generally no issues other than whether or not its convenient for you to move alts around for that purpose.

Without more specifics about your case, it sounds like maybe your issue is the final delivery--i.e. you need the first toon to trade with the second toon at the destination in order to complete the contract, but the first toon doesn't have access to the destination station (I'm assuming sov station in this case). While there are solutions to this, they all involve having standings at the destination station. Of course, the second toon has those standings, so I'm assuming that the reason he isn't making the initial pickup is because your corp is decced or he has negative faction/concord standings. If neither is true, I'm not clear on why you'd do it this way. If your destination station is a place where you have an office and the first toon is in that corp, he can always jump clone or med clone (self destruct) to that location to complete the trade. But again, if he can do that, I'm not sure why you'd use two legs for this.

Bokononist

 
Andre Vauban
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-03-05 21:52:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Andre Vauban
Thanks Zaxix. You stated what I was afraid of. I was kind of hoping you Red Frog/Black Frog guys had a magic trick.

In my specific case, I have an alt corp set up where Alliance mates post courier contracts to. This is done because we are in FW and cannot easily hang out in Jita. That alt corp is just for station jockey's. They never undock, they just accept and complete contracts. The alt corp then does a sub-courier contract to either Red Frog :) or directly to one of our NPC freighter alts. The freighter takes the courier contract to our highsec staging system. At this point, the JF NPC toon picks it up and jumps it into the final destination.

Right now I'm working around this by moving my alt corp toon around to the different locations because they can have standings, but its a royal PITA. Jump cloning is not really viable, "pod-jumping" is difficult without multiple toons and can get expensive. I could put the JF pilot into the alt corp when not under war dec, but that is generally a bad idea as it could allow for a fellow corp mate to gank a JF. I generally prefer NPC JF toons. I could also use the JF to pick up the original courier contract, but I don't like the idea of doing normal gate jumps in a JF, it just seems to be to juicy a target to gank. The other option is to have a station jockey alt at all the possible pickup locations, the staging system, and the final destination but I don't have enough char slots for that.

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Zaxix
State War Academy
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-03-06 15:53:11 UTC
Andre Vauban wrote:
situational details

You have some advantages that we don't as a public courier company. You can tell people not to put cans in their packages. And if they do, they go on the black list! That's probably your easiest solution.

However, it also sounds like maybe your current model is a bit overcomplicated. JFs are actually better than freighters for AFK hisec hauling. They have more EHP and are faster. Freighters can carry more volume overall, but since your final leg involves jump freighters, the package has to fit anyway. You might fit two packages in a freighter, but collateral will still be a concern (lower is better, 1bill or lower is best of all, 2 bill is pushing it; you can go about double in a JF). Med clone travel (aka self destruct travel, pod express, etc) should be dirt cheap with a 900k or less alt. Just 5600 to relocated the med clone and the replacement clone is free. If you had an office at the start and end points, it would never take more than 2 minutes to log on the alt and make a trade on either end.

But I would just tell people to stop putting cans in packages. There is no need for them in the package and the only real purpose they serve is organizing things. Don't let their OCD'ness dictate your logistics!

Bokononist