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Transported Goods Safety


Shockeray

Should Player-Quest Transported Goods Be Stealable  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. From what I understand, there are going to be ways to assign quests to other players in order to, among other things, have goods transported to a desired location. Should these quest goods be able to be stolen by the player transporting them?

    • Yes; no stipulations. You have to watch who you make deals with.
      28
    • Yes, but notify the quest giver.
      4
    • Yes, but cause an automatic bounty.
      5
    • No, but other players should be able to steal the goods during transport.
      1
    • No! Players should not have direct access to the items.
      0
    • No, and the goods should be saved (e.g. returning home on unsuccessful transport)
      0
    • Other... (please mention below)
      4


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@Zamarus: he describes EXACTLY what Eve does - collateral. Only with more prerequisitions (like ship value). But in fact it's the exact same system.

 

As I said earlier - that's not a new system and it's even worse than in eve

So, no systemnis better? When anyone can freely take your cargo and do not take responsibility? Lol, forget then about deliveries. It will be very minor in inside-organisations. No any PMQ possible.

Or what do you suggest? All I see, that is bad, that is bad, eve is good, that is bad, oh this is like eve so it is bad =)))

 

I find these two models (without deep designing) fair and open to community (especially simple insurance cover). When player take delivery job, and in the end player focused to do the job. Not decide steal good or not.

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So, no systemnis better? When anyone can freely take your cargo and do not take responsibility? Lol, forget then about deliveries. It will be very minor in inside-organisations. No any PMQ possible.

Or what do you suggest? All I see, that is bad, that is bad, eve is good, that is bad, oh this is like eve so it is bad =)))

 

I find these two models (without deep designing) fair and open to community (especially simple insurance cover). When player take delivery job, and in the end player focused to do the job. Not decide steal good or not.

 

Never said there shouldn't be any system - quote it or it didn't happen

What you described is the EVE system as I said already two times - so you got two choices here

 

- OPTION A: just take the eve system

- OPTION B: NQ invents something new

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No worries, EVE Online's contract system has you covered. TL; DR : the hauler puts up a collateral fee for the cargo, that the person issued the cotnract evaluated his cargo as.

 

If I wanted to move 10 billions worth of minerals to my factory, I would take into account :

 

1) the price of my minerals

 

2) the time I would invest on them if I was to refine or manufacture through them.

 

3) how much I would actually make in the market.

 

Then I set up a collateral of 20 billions on my 10 billion cargo. If the cargo hauler does not deliver the cargo within a certain window, I get the collateral the hauler put up to undertake the contract. If the Hauler delivers the cargo to the cargo container I designated for him to put the cargo in, he gets paid as the contract is fulfilled. 

 

And that's how it's done. A simple mechanism of contracts. Contracts in EVE == player quests. Some may ask you to bring the body of a particular person to them to be rewarded. Other contracts may be for minerals, while others use contracts to sell stuff.

 

Yes, this can be used to scam noobs that can't tell what contract is a scam, but hey, ce la vie.

 

So yeah, cargo should be stealable, but if you put up collateral for it when issueing the contract, you are covered. It's the hauler's problem to make sure they deliver the cargo.

I was going to comment that exact thing but apparently you beat me to it :(.

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Never said there shouldn't be any system - quote it or it didn't happen

What you described is the EVE system as I said already two times - so you got two choices here

 

- OPTION A: just take the eve system

- OPTION B: NQ invents something new

That was a question!

 

And I never play EVE, so I have no idea what system is there. If it same in idea (when I pay for insurance to secure cargo), I am absolutelly fine with that. I don't care how idea looks, most important what result in the end. That what I care.

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I personally think that regulation should be minimal, if at all.

Regulation on this would close so many doors for emergent gameplay, in my opinion. Let me use an example:

 

(I apologize in advance for the long post, but I will try to keep it interesting.)

 

Let's say I run a shipping company. I get hired to do a high-insurance, low-risk delivery. (That may sound like it won't happen, but I am sure it will.) I put the cargo on a ship outfitted to adequately handle my assessment of the risk + the amount of insurance I am covering.

I get waylaid by highly-armed pirates before making the delivery, and despite my best efforts, they succeed in stealing the cargo.

 

I forfeit the insurance cost to the client, as previously arranged.

Later, through my intelligence network, I learn that the client set me up for the pirate hit.

If the "haulers can't steal cargo" mechanic existed, I would be limited to blacklisting him and putting a bounty on him. Both of these are good, but I really want to make him sorry for messing with me.

 

So let's say that mechanic doesn't exist.

I now have the option of leading him into an ambush by accepting another shipment from him, only this time I go for one that is high-insurance, and high risk due to valuable cargo.

I simply fly straight into the "trap" he set for me, only to have my hired guns annihilate his. I then "steal" his cargo, and voila, a taste of his own medicine!

 

This is the type of sweet revenge that would not be possible if all transported goods were safe. Besides, a "safe" transport mechanic only penalizes the transporter, it gives them very few options to defend against abuse by the client.

 

As far as the core unit needing to be destroyed before the cargo can be accessed: there are "gentleman" pirates out there who are only interested in the cargo, they don't want to destroy your entire ship. If the core unit has to be destroyed before cargo can be accessed, they will cease to exist and all pirates will have to be cutthroat in order to operate at all.

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@Zamarus: he describes EXACTLY what Eve does - collateral. Only with more prerequisitions (like ship value). But in fact it's the exact same system.

 

As I said earlier - that's not a new system and it's even worse than in eve

What Archonious asks for is naive. Why? Cause as we know from EVE, a Stratios is the best salvage delivery hauler. Stratios is a stealth cruiser for those uninitiated, meant for scanning down them wormholes and is able to combat efficiently with many differnet fittings.

 

A Stratios costs - on average fitting - around 500 million isk (a good fit). 500 Million is about (at current PLEX prices) equivalent to 7,5 euro in RL worth after covnersion. Cheap ship one would say.

 

Well, a Stratios can carry up to 5000000000 (5 Billion) worth of cargo. That's 75 Euro cargo, on a 7,5 Euro ship (again, the monetary value RL comes after conversions, for clarity's sake, as we don't know or can project in-game prices in DU at this point in time).

 

So, what Archonious asks for "I want to have a 75 Euro worth ship, be able to take 75 Euro worth cargo".

 

And to this comes reality, ready to ground Archonious back to this piece of spit of rock and dust we call Earth..

 

Delivering a 75 Euro cargo on a 75 Euro ship, will tell pirates, in big neon lights "GANK ME, PLEASE, I AM CARRYING EXPENSIVE CARGO, PLEASE, GANK ME, GANK ME, GANK ME, I'M A LOOT PINYATA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111oneone".

 

There's a reason freighters are expensive. Because if a silly Stratios, can carry 10 times its worth on cargo, a Freighter can carry 1000 times its worth in Cargo. The only limitation is carrying capacity. Putting a limit on who can take a high risk and high reward job, is, by itself, against the nature of the game. Hauling Blueprints in a little, unnoticable star-fighter that people won't bother to even intercept, that's so agaile it can evade anything even if they did, is an option. The payout will be insane for the courer if he succeeds at delivering all them BPCs in a region that they are demand highly in because of XYZ reasons. 

 

 

EVE's system works perfectly. And as many know of EVE, if you are not an anti-social person, you get to talk and learn where and when to avoid ganks, making your courier life easier, let alone, figuring out what jobs are worth it, depending on the distance involved and the pay-per-lightyear.

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I think the transporter should be able to steal the cargo, but there should be consequences for doing that.  The consequences, however, should be determined and enforced by the social structures the players create, not by the mechanics of the game.  To me, this is primarily a game about building a civilization.  That means the game must allow problems like this to exist, so players can try to find a way to solve them.

 

The conditions of the job, including who takes the risks and what happens if the cargo is not delivered, should be determined by the transporter and the customer, or by the organizations they belong to.  Having the solution built into the game would probably be more effective, but to me, much less interesting.

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I think something similar to EVE Online's courier system might be a good way....the hauler puts up a collateral say 75% to 110% or so the value of the cargo. upon accepting the money is taken from their wallet. upon delivery the collateral is returned and the reward is given automatically. in the event the hauler fails the collateral goes to the person who created the quest/contract and the items stay with the hauler or whoever has them in the event they were stolen

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That is pretty much the "contract" system that has been suggested, although I don't know if NQ has officially stated how it will work yet.

(If someone knows, please post a link as I would like to read up on it. :) )

 

But, I think it should be a part of the game that is available for use, not forced on the haulers by a game mechanic. Haulers / customers should have the option to use the established contract system, or not.

Maybe they have their own version through a third-party organization, and it works better for them than the standard system.

 

Whatever the case, the transporter and the customer should be able to decide whether they use any system of contract at all.

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