The only people resisting this idea are those that exploit the current system and expect a cargo pilot to take 1 -5 mill in reward for putting up 1 billion in collateral. Yeah..that's real fair.

Not supported.

If you don't like the pay available, start or join a hauling corp like Red Frog].

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

Red Frog does not own EVE and if so then there is a problem becuase they have now establsihed a monopoly in a game that shouldnt have them. I'd rather see 10, 20, 30 "Red Frog "corps fighting for your attention. With the system as it stand, that will never happen.

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 has been mentioned here ad nauseum. Do you realize that with a fixed public percentage requirement, private corps now have a measuring stick to use to offer cheaper services. 7%, 6%, 5%...so on.

Red Frog does not own EVE and if so then there is a problem becuase they have now establsihed a monopoly in a game that shouldnt have them. I'd rather see 10, 20, 30 "Red Frog "corps fighting for your attention. With the current system as it stand, that will never happen.

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

[You see it as fair but I see it as no one using public hauler services. It is that simple. I would switch to private contracts with Red Frog as they are exempt from your massive jump in fees.

Oh and just a duopoly is good?

Based on the hauling/distance model you presented let me ask, are you willing to pay per jump if all you are shipping is a skillbook worth just 1mill isk over 30 jumps? No you wouldnt. To save money you would then claim the job is based on cargo value and not haul distance.

t's still the same distance to the cargo pilot regardless of cargo even though you may feel the job should be much less based on the value of your cargo in that scenario. It is still the same amount of work even if your cargo is 100mill isk in value over 30 jumps.

I don't haul but I agree with you on this. If someone is going to ask a billion or more isk in collateral to move something and then only offer ten million isk that is stupid. In the real world that would never happen. That kind of mentality is why courier contracts hardly seem to work at all they are just not worth the money. I would like to see something like this happen as well.

True, however the same security can be obtained by having the cargo you want shipped in a secure container. I've never tried it, but I believe it's doable, and if not then having unbreakable crates used for hauling should become a standard in EVE hauling. That would eliminate the possibility of theft.

On the flip side of the coin, there are those that use shipping contracts to scam. One of my earliest expereinces was of accepting a contract at 200mil collateral with a 100mil payoff to be delivered into null. I made it to the destination but found the station would not allow me to dock. That was before the shipping contracts feature was revamped to prevent this from happening.

You would think I would have the contents of the cargo to cover my loss....NO!! The cargo turned out to be a small empty container.

Shipping scams still exist in various forms. Some high collateral contracts are designed with the intent that the cargo never make it to its destination...especially in low/null.

Since there is always the possibility that a shipping contract will be delivered, having a fixed reward rate will make the scams a little less profitable for the scammer and hopefully reduce them in the public market.

OH MY WORD You guys sound like TRUCK DRIVERS!

One of the basic principles of EVE is an open market. Courier contracts are priced as they are because there are people willing to haul at those rates. If it's too low for you, that's fine - because I can just find another hauler who will do it at that price.

What you're proposing is similar to a miner saying "selling Tritanium at 2.5 ISK each is too low, there should be a fixed minimum sell price of 5 ISK."

Now if you want to do something constructive, do as your thread title says, talk to the "cargo pilots", unite them, and get everyone to refuse any contract priced too low. Or even accept it and break it, to further inconvenience those issuing them. If there was a significant drop in people hauling for the current rates, we would have to increase the payouts or haul things ourselves.

Now that i think about it, one problem with this is that it could pretty much kill the shipping business in eve since it's so easy to haul your own stuff for free if there is no haulers to haul your stuff. No need for supply if there is no demands.

A fixed rate is going to make more rewarding couriers probably less rewarding, especially on long routes, because it dictates what something should be.

A fixed rate is a minimum requirment. if you feel a shipment should pay more, then you can add more. You just cant go below the minimum rate. Again, private contratcs can continue to be whatever you want.

A change is sorely needed.

So what about that idea of starting a hauling corp for the independents?

It already exists; that's what Red Frog is. Red Frog itself makes no money from its pilots. It's just a brand, a queue, and a bunch of independent haulers doing their own thing. We don't have requirements for X number of deliveries or Y number of days active or any of that. The directors are essentially long term volunteers to keep things going. Nobody's a boss.

How does Red Frog divvy up the contracts allocated to them? First in first served?