Burufadanashifahnsa
Minmatar
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Posted - 2009.02.15 11:55:00 -
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Torain I love your idea and support the idea of making "Freight Transporter" more than a hypothetical career.
My Suggestions:
Executive summary:
- Shipping rate chosen by players.
- You can mail anything in the region from the assets window.
- Bonuses for speed.
- Lost goods return under the senders control.
Deadlines: What would stop a freighter pilot from hoovering up all the best paying jobs and pushing out small players? Time constraint and remote orders. At the moment I can buy something anywhere in a region, I should also be able to get it mailed to me.
Any job can have a deadline added to the job by which it must be delivered. So I can pay 2m for a nice weapon 10 jumps away and charge say 100,000isk(5% of cost) to get it to me within two hours. Leaving me free to do another mission. If I choose to put a deadline I can also choose whether to put a different price on it after that or have it become "lost". A deadline can be absolute - by 2pm - or relative - within 4hrs.
Even without a deadline every job has an expiry after being accepted - default 24hrs - after which it becomes "lost".
Courier career: Even a beginner can search jobs by station, system or constellation for anywhere in the region so they can plan a return trip.
Couriers could advertise their availability like a buy order. eg 800m3 left, departing (in 5 mins) for jita, no stops, 40isk/m3, due 1 hour. Senders are accepted first come first served until the shipment is full or the courier undocks. The courier could offer to pay insurance.
Skills could allow acceptance of shipments (for round trips) remotely or decrease broker fees or insurance cost. They could allow more criteria on 'sell' order acceptance for serious courier corps.
Issues: Security of supply? Tough luck this is Eve. Packages can be destroyed like any other cargo.
At any point a package could become "lost" rather than destroyed. The original courier may lose possesion or a deadline may expire with no lower price offered. The shipper gets an eve mail to that effect and the wallet shows goods as lost.
A lost package can be handed in for a 'bounty' that is a percentage of the fee and is decided by the sender. It must be handed in to any station on the most direct route for the job. A bounty could be zero but the good samaritan is revealed to the sender.
A handed in package stays where it is until collected by the owner or put up for shipping again. The remaining fee after bounty is paid is returned.
Griefers could still stash packages at a station indefinitely. So the sender can set a lost package to self destruct at down time to claim insurance. Yes, this could be far away in 0.0.
The package has source and destination marked but never reveals the identity of the sender although knowledgable players may be able to infer it.
Courier agents will become a bit less fun...
Hope I covered everything
Torain your idea is a great way to make this career a reality.
P.S. I agree. NO npc courier.
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