Make long-distance hauling more accessible and cooperative.
Allow courier contracts to be completed in short jump segments instead of requiring a single player to haul the package the entire route. For example, instead of traveling 100 jumps solo, a hauler can move the courier package 5-10 jumps, then hand it off to another hauler, and so on until it reaches its destination. Each relay hauler gets paid for their portion upon delivery to the designated handoff station, while collateral remains secured until final delivery. This would reduce boredom experienced during transportation gameplay, making hauling more accessible to new players, and encourage cooperative logistics gameplay.
Additionally based on the security category, the pay would differ maintaining the net transport cost be constant. Low sec hauling will get more paid with less collateral fee and high sec hauling will be paid less with more collateral fee.
Also, if there is a hauling corporation, then for private bases, they will get access to transport the courier to the destination with constraint that non of the parties (i.e. the transporter and receiver) will attack each other.
Would it severely restrict the time haulers can take to fulfill a (partial) hauling contract or would it possible for one hauler to take almost the entire duration of one part of the trip after which none of the next haulers have enough time to finish the contract?
What happens with a partially fulfilled contract that moved the goods halfway the route but isn’t picked up by another hauler in time due to these timing issues?
Who loses collateral if the first partial courier finished their part if the trip but no one else followed it up?
The more I think about it the more I realize it’s much easier for the creator of the contract themselves to cut up courier contracts into multiple segments if they want to.
We’ve got the tools already, why not create multiple courier contracts?
@Gerard_Amatin raised most of my immediate concerns, so I’ll just add:
As someone who from time to time contracts long haul freight, I offer a resounding, ‘No thanks.’ When I hire a hauler, it’s usually to move billions in cargo, so I want to keep things as simple and predictable as possible. Move the load–on time–or pay the collateral. How it gets there, I don’t really care. If I wanted to be bothered by that mess, I’d haul it myself. So I’m not interested in any change that adds further uncertainty or the potential for complications.
I wouldn’t use that at all. If I set up, for example Jita >>> Amarr contract, that’s dozens of jumps through mostly scarcely populated systems. Someone picks up the cargo, delivers it to some God forsaken station in the middle of nowhere and leaves it there. Literally no one would pick it up from there, because there is no one living in the 5 jump area, and my cargo is now stuck.
I can see OPs pov. You order a package, or need something shipped, the same courier picking it up isn’t the same that delivers it. It goes through several hands and even different companies altogether