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Tizon O'Chai
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Posted - 2004.10.24 06:29:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Tizon O'Chai on 24/10/2004 07:05:51
So I'm browsing through the courier mission list, looking for a change of pace from working for my agent. And I can't for the life of me understand why people take these on.
10 jump route, 2k in cargo, 17 million collateral, 10k reward.
The large cargo requirements means I'll be flying an indy. 17 million collateral means I'd have to be an established player with a good amount of cash on hand. 10 jumps will take half an hour, depending on the route. And the mission creator is expecting someone who fits this description will be interested in a 10k isk reward?
It doesn't get any better from the other end. I've issued a few courier missions to help ferry supplies to my home system. I figure I make about 50k a mission, which take anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes to complete. In the same about of time I could probably travel 8 or so jumps. So if I want to buy something that's more than 4 hops from my home system, it'd be much more efficent for me to contract the courier job out to someone else while I keep earning cash through missions.
So I track down some cheap ammo and a replacement drone in a system 5 jumps from where I am. Perfect canidate for a courier job. I'm only asking about 25k in collateral and paying 35k in reward. The package would easily fit in an Imicus, so any trader or miner with time to spare could handle this job. Someone picks it up about 10 minutes after I posted the mission. But here it is 23 hours later and I still haven't heard a word.
"Stealing" the package makes no sense, as the goods inside are not worth the collateral the courier will lose. The collateral amount is enough that some brand new player wouldn't be able to afford it. And I would assume people would have some idea as to how these missions work before forking over a decent amount of cash.
So on one hand, people making courier missions are making silly terms for tiny payouts, and people taking courier missions are not finishing them. I'm having a hard time figuring out how this tool is supposed to be useful.
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Tizon O'Chai
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Posted - 2004.10.24 06:29:00 -
[2]
Edited by: Tizon O'Chai on 24/10/2004 07:05:51
So I'm browsing through the courier mission list, looking for a change of pace from working for my agent. And I can't for the life of me understand why people take these on.
10 jump route, 2k in cargo, 17 million collateral, 10k reward.
The large cargo requirements means I'll be flying an indy. 17 million collateral means I'd have to be an established player with a good amount of cash on hand. 10 jumps will take half an hour, depending on the route. And the mission creator is expecting someone who fits this description will be interested in a 10k isk reward?
It doesn't get any better from the other end. I've issued a few courier missions to help ferry supplies to my home system. I figure I make about 50k a mission, which take anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes to complete. In the same about of time I could probably travel 8 or so jumps. So if I want to buy something that's more than 4 hops from my home system, it'd be much more efficent for me to contract the courier job out to someone else while I keep earning cash through missions.
So I track down some cheap ammo and a replacement drone in a system 5 jumps from where I am. Perfect canidate for a courier job. I'm only asking about 25k in collateral and paying 35k in reward. The package would easily fit in an Imicus, so any trader or miner with time to spare could handle this job. Someone picks it up about 10 minutes after I posted the mission. But here it is 23 hours later and I still haven't heard a word.
"Stealing" the package makes no sense, as the goods inside are not worth the collateral the courier will lose. The collateral amount is enough that some brand new player wouldn't be able to afford it. And I would assume people would have some idea as to how these missions work before forking over a decent amount of cash.
So on one hand, people making courier missions are making silly terms for tiny payouts, and people taking courier missions are not finishing them. I'm having a hard time figuring out how this tool is supposed to be useful.
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JP Beauregard
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Posted - 2004.10.24 07:39:00 -
[3]
PC courier mission have always been and will forever continue to be the playground for scammers and con artists who pray on the trusting, the unwary and the dumb - who are indeed in limitless supply.
So people with half a brain don't take courier missions because the missions don't pay and might get you screwed and people who'd want to use the system to avoid travel (which in a game where the inly thing you'll ever see of yourself is a ship which kinda implies you'll have to travel at some point) don't get that choice.
In short: the system is useless. No reason why it shouldn't be either. There aren't nearly enough people in this game to drive the division of labor to such a degree that PC courier missions could be meaningful.
JP Beauregard
=== The Pilkington Guides to EVE === |
JP Beauregard
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Posted - 2004.10.24 07:39:00 -
[4]
PC courier mission have always been and will forever continue to be the playground for scammers and con artists who pray on the trusting, the unwary and the dumb - who are indeed in limitless supply.
So people with half a brain don't take courier missions because the missions don't pay and might get you screwed and people who'd want to use the system to avoid travel (which in a game where the inly thing you'll ever see of yourself is a ship which kinda implies you'll have to travel at some point) don't get that choice.
In short: the system is useless. No reason why it shouldn't be either. There aren't nearly enough people in this game to drive the division of labor to such a degree that PC courier missions could be meaningful.
JP Beauregard
=== The Pilkington Guides to EVE === |
Feta Solamnia
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Posted - 2004.10.25 10:54:00 -
[5]
Collateral is the problem.
It's simply a matter of "how much do you value your time ISK-wise".
I'm moving obscene amounts of items on a daily basis, but I simply CANNOT use escrow.
Why? Well... show me one person with >300m to pay in collateral that would be willing to even take a peek at the courier escrow and move his butt for 100-500k that I'm willing to spend (for quite a few jumps too).
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Feta Solamnia
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Posted - 2004.10.25 10:54:00 -
[6]
Collateral is the problem.
It's simply a matter of "how much do you value your time ISK-wise".
I'm moving obscene amounts of items on a daily basis, but I simply CANNOT use escrow.
Why? Well... show me one person with >300m to pay in collateral that would be willing to even take a peek at the courier escrow and move his butt for 100-500k that I'm willing to spend (for quite a few jumps too).
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Sewell
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Posted - 2004.10.25 11:37:00 -
[7]
What went wrong is that ppl don't think that time = money. So, instead of putting up a 20 jump courier job and pay 1M isk for it, they do the hauling themself. OR (very rarely) they put up a courier mission, and only offer 20k in reward (being cheap bastards).
If ppl were smart they would realise that the reward for a courier mission could be almost as high as the amount of isk you could make by doing something diffrent with the time you save. So if you make 2M isk/h by mining scordite/doing missions/whatever, and you have something to pick up that will take you about 1h of hauling, you would be better of to create a courier mission with a reward of 1M, and go on mining for another hour.
You will then earn 1M isk for 1h of work (instead of 0 isk if you did the hauling yourself) and the person doing the courier job would earn 1M isk for 1h of work.
Another reason for the lack of success for the couriser system is that there are no specialiced hauling/transportation corps in EVE. If there were some reliable corp that you knew were out there doing courier missions (and them having a clear pricing policy so ppl would know what rewards to offer) you would see more "real" courier missions, cause frankly - I hate to haul stuff*.
* This is probably the reason why there are no such corps however - I can imagine there are not many ppl willing to spend all of their time in EVE just moving stuff from one station to another...
That being said; I would love to see a player run logistics corp to give the (non-existent) interbus some competition.
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Sewell
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Posted - 2004.10.25 11:37:00 -
[8]
What went wrong is that ppl don't think that time = money. So, instead of putting up a 20 jump courier job and pay 1M isk for it, they do the hauling themself. OR (very rarely) they put up a courier mission, and only offer 20k in reward (being cheap bastards).
If ppl were smart they would realise that the reward for a courier mission could be almost as high as the amount of isk you could make by doing something diffrent with the time you save. So if you make 2M isk/h by mining scordite/doing missions/whatever, and you have something to pick up that will take you about 1h of hauling, you would be better of to create a courier mission with a reward of 1M, and go on mining for another hour.
You will then earn 1M isk for 1h of work (instead of 0 isk if you did the hauling yourself) and the person doing the courier job would earn 1M isk for 1h of work.
Another reason for the lack of success for the couriser system is that there are no specialiced hauling/transportation corps in EVE. If there were some reliable corp that you knew were out there doing courier missions (and them having a clear pricing policy so ppl would know what rewards to offer) you would see more "real" courier missions, cause frankly - I hate to haul stuff*.
* This is probably the reason why there are no such corps however - I can imagine there are not many ppl willing to spend all of their time in EVE just moving stuff from one station to another...
That being said; I would love to see a player run logistics corp to give the (non-existent) interbus some competition.
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Sammira
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Posted - 2004.10.25 13:16:00 -
[9]
Edited by: Sammira on 25/10/2004 13:24:22
I issue plenty of courier missions which have numerous pilots working for [DS] Haulage. Collateral is generally under 10 million isk with rewards ranging from 400k to 1 million is at journeys between 6 and 20 jumps, with most averaging around 12-14.
I can't say I have many, if any problems filling these missions. If you're inerested, look for mission descriptions made by myself and pre-fixed with [DS]. Afew days back, I had the top paying 15 courier missions with an additional 12-15 of the same values which had already been accepted by couriers.
Currently I have 13 missions outstanding and I should be entering another 10 today. I also have a list of couriers whom I use for [DS] missions, several of which are in the 30-50 completed missions bracket. It's always intersting to see how ones employees fair. *smiles*
Drink StarsiÖ + [DS] Haulage
Production Division
Caldari State Citizen
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Sammira
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Posted - 2004.10.25 13:16:00 -
[10]
Edited by: Sammira on 25/10/2004 13:24:22
I issue plenty of courier missions which have numerous pilots working for [DS] Haulage. Collateral is generally under 10 million isk with rewards ranging from 400k to 1 million is at journeys between 6 and 20 jumps, with most averaging around 12-14.
I can't say I have many, if any problems filling these missions. If you're inerested, look for mission descriptions made by myself and pre-fixed with [DS]. Afew days back, I had the top paying 15 courier missions with an additional 12-15 of the same values which had already been accepted by couriers.
Currently I have 13 missions outstanding and I should be entering another 10 today. I also have a list of couriers whom I use for [DS] missions, several of which are in the 30-50 completed missions bracket. It's always intersting to see how ones employees fair. *smiles*
Drink StarsiÖ + [DS] Haulage
Production Division
Caldari State Citizen
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Black January
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Posted - 2004.10.30 21:33:00 -
[11]
I used to use currier missions to move ore all the time. I'd never post anything for less than 250k per 8km3 and 4-8 jumps. It was mostly tritanium I didn't feel like moving from the mining station to the factory, but there would be weeks where I'd spend a good 10m in shipping.
People do use the currier missions, people do complete them. The real problem is not enough honest offers and planety of people willing to take them on.
Its a nice system, for the suppliers. The individual runners just have to be in the right place at the right time.. and thats more luck than skill I'm afraid.
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Black January
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Posted - 2004.10.30 21:33:00 -
[12]
I used to use currier missions to move ore all the time. I'd never post anything for less than 250k per 8km3 and 4-8 jumps. It was mostly tritanium I didn't feel like moving from the mining station to the factory, but there would be weeks where I'd spend a good 10m in shipping.
People do use the currier missions, people do complete them. The real problem is not enough honest offers and planety of people willing to take them on.
Its a nice system, for the suppliers. The individual runners just have to be in the right place at the right time.. and thats more luck than skill I'm afraid.
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Grismar
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Posted - 2004.10.31 14:46:00 -
[13]
Yes, the problem with the courier system is exactly that. The system will never work, since someone posting a courier mission will only want to pay for the distance the cargo needs to travel. But the pilot actually ferrying the stuff will need to travel to the starting station, pick up the load, travel to the target station, drop the load and then return to wherever he was in the first place. (or somewhere close)
Unless there are so many courier missions available that it's actually feasible to chain them, a courier will therefore have to travel a lot more jumps in an indy than the pilot posting the mission is willing to pay for. More than likely, that pilot will have a corp buddy in the same system or nearby that will be willing to move the cargo instead.
I feel that a solution to this problem might lie in NPC agents posting courier missions in the courier section as well. This would establish a "standard" price for this type of mission and would improve the chances of haulers to be able to 'chain' their trips. PC agents could then lure haulers to their jobs by offering slightly better prices than the NPCs.
Greetings,
Grismar.
Rats - Corp/Implants - Agents |
Grismar
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Posted - 2004.10.31 14:46:00 -
[14]
Yes, the problem with the courier system is exactly that. The system will never work, since someone posting a courier mission will only want to pay for the distance the cargo needs to travel. But the pilot actually ferrying the stuff will need to travel to the starting station, pick up the load, travel to the target station, drop the load and then return to wherever he was in the first place. (or somewhere close)
Unless there are so many courier missions available that it's actually feasible to chain them, a courier will therefore have to travel a lot more jumps in an indy than the pilot posting the mission is willing to pay for. More than likely, that pilot will have a corp buddy in the same system or nearby that will be willing to move the cargo instead.
I feel that a solution to this problem might lie in NPC agents posting courier missions in the courier section as well. This would establish a "standard" price for this type of mission and would improve the chances of haulers to be able to 'chain' their trips. PC agents could then lure haulers to their jobs by offering slightly better prices than the NPCs.
Greetings,
Grismar.
Rats - Corp/Implants - Agents |
Mirelath
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Posted - 2004.10.31 15:53:00 -
[15]
 Quote:
I feel that a solution to this problem might lie in NPC agents posting courier missions in the courier section as well. This would establish a "standard" price for this type of mission and would improve the chances of haulers to be able to 'chain' their trips. PC agents could then lure haulers to their jobs by offering slightly better prices than the NPCs.
That's actually a really nice idea - it would encourage more people to do courier missions, then with more people looking there, more people would set (reasonable) courier missions andd the system could get going again. It'd be nice to see something like that
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Mirelath
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Posted - 2004.10.31 15:53:00 -
[16]
Quote:
I feel that a solution to this problem might lie in NPC agents posting courier missions in the courier section as well. This would establish a "standard" price for this type of mission and would improve the chances of haulers to be able to 'chain' their trips. PC agents could then lure haulers to their jobs by offering slightly better prices than the NPCs.
That's actually a really nice idea - it would encourage more people to do courier missions, then with more people looking there, more people would set (reasonable) courier missions andd the system could get going again. It'd be nice to see something like that
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