Looks just like you
Quite honestly your contracts are the ones im always hoping for, there are far more contracts available unworthy (for what ever reason) than worthy in my relatively short experience. People expecting 500 mil collateral to be taken on for a 10 mil, so thats what 2% of the collateral, and then maybe asking it to be jumped 15 times. Maybe they were just inexperienced at putting the contract up, idk, people come in all shapes and sizes.
Scamming is an approved part of the game. you fell for it. It literally says ON THE CONTRACT that “You may not be able to enter this facility” or something along this lines.
If the destination for a courier contract is a citadel you’re already warned that the destination may be unreachable, choosing to ignore the warning does not make the contract a scam or a bad mechanic.
Furthermore, you can filter out possibly unreachable destinations in the contract browser, simply check “exclude unreachable”.
If you don’t use the tools already available or can’t be arsed to read the contract carefully (at least thrice) and ignore any warnings given, the responsibility for anything that goes wrong is on you.
For the record, the problem is not the citadel being accessible at the time you accept the contract. The problem is the owner removing your docking rights after you accept the contract.
Unfortunately, it appears the courier dropbox didn’t make it into the Upwell 2.0 release…
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That would be nice wouldn’t it.
And all those space mines have been disarmed, so the only danger now would be the dairy products spoiling, or the Fedo escaping
Thank you so much for pointing out something we all are well aware of. Please go back to velcro shoes.
You are completely right, having a player owned citadel as the destination does not make it a scam. What makes it a scam is removing any docking rights, thus this conversation we are already having.
So to summarise your advice is do not take on contracts to private facilities because theyre all scams and if u do u deserve a slap in the face?
If anything was to be done about this problem, obviously one of the small changes that would need to made ismaking it unable to remove the rights until the drop off has been made. That said it does present a problem (although im not sure exactly how much damage u can do to a citadel just by docking), if a 3 day contract was picked up, that pilot then has free access until the contract is over.
I’m guessing your were being wholey sarcastic when u mentioned a dropbox, funnily enough that is a perfect solution.
I use to use the courier service all the time when I was living in a wormhole. Getting gas and relic/data stuff from anywheres in high sec I could get to and get it to a major trade hub has always been invaluable. Not to mention making the collateral 1.5x to 2x the normal cargo value was nice in case the hauler did fail. If they did not fail, then what I paid was a pittance compared to what I would otherwise lose hauling to jita or amarr.
Contracts are filled very quickly. As for things haulers should know, youll get a warning if it going to a player citadel. Never take those contracts and I mean NEVER since they can lock out after accepting. The risk is not worth it and I doubt they will ever make it where removing the rights to remove during a hauling will ever happen.
Just stick with NPC stations like every other courier and you wont need to worry. I can guarantee complaining will not do anything in C&P and will only serve for you to be laughed at.
It’s almost like ccp encourage conflict through this mechanic. You could destroy the citadel for revenge
Zero sarcasm. It’s a stated dev goal to solve this problem.
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Courier contracts are fine. It is player driven, meaning the hauler decides if a contract is worth taking and the contractor decides what is going to be paid out. The vast majority of contracts are done by people who actually need their goods moved. Only a tiny minority of people abuse the contract system to defraud haulers of their isk. It is a good system.
The only thing missing is an option to cancel a courier contract because it can not be delivered to the requested location.
Upwell structures have created a whole new problem for haulers. They can be locked down or destroyed which means a contract can’t be delivered to it given location.
Option in this case should be to deliver it to an alternate location in the same system.
But… That would remove the opportunity for scammers/thieves to make isk, so CCP will never do it
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There are already tools in place that let haulers know how risky a specific upwell structure is. There is the finished contracts of a contractor. There is the corp history of the ceo who owns the structure. There is the age of the holding corp for the citadel. A hauler who does the bare minimum investigative work can discern for himself whether or not a contract going to a citadel is a scam or is legit. If he cannot discern for himself before taking the contract, well they get to learn the hard way.
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There are indeed a few ways to check.
You’re obviously not a hauler or you would know there are always exceptions.
By your own guidelines of how to ensure a courier contract is “safe” or not - Hundreds of contracts would go undelivered every day.
A simple change to the mechanics would eliminate scam courier contracts - Accepting a courier contract includes docking access to the structure.
Yes the hauler should have to take precautions but there are enough dangers out there for haulers now with gankers, ransom bumpers etc, why not add a simple qol mechanic for haulers that allows docking.
Personally if I see a courier to or from a place not already on my safe list, I simply skip it. I can’t be bothered spending the extra time checking to see if a new contractor is trying a scam or not - Better to just keep doing what I do and let someone else take the risk.
I check every day to see if I have been wardecc’d, I check constantly to see who is ganking and where, I only have limited time to play each day and am not wasting it having to check out whether a destination is legit or not.
I’m not interesting in debating this… It is how i carry out my hauling business and it ain’t gonna change unless the issue with access lists and docking is sorted.
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Are there always exception? Theres plenty of public contracts to choose from, and again, the vast majority are good contracts. The system is working as intended.
Of course it is, from your point of view
There is room for abuse - So working as intended.
Since the introduction of scam citadels I’ve not touched a public courier contract and won’t until the scam aspect is removed.
Fortunately I have plenty of work for legit customers, I don’t bother with the unknown - As I said, there is enough risk in hauling without CCP adding Scam Structures.
Courier contracts are incredibly helpful.
Especially in smaller corporations. Corp Hauler instructs corp mates to create contracts from a specific system to, say, a staging. This could be like a Hub like Jita or Amarr. Then the players just make the contracts, and any time the hauler heads that way, or decides to do a run, picks em up and brings them back. There is no issue of forgetting items, or buying the wrong things, or sending the ISK to the wrong character, not having enough ISK to buy what they want…
With Courier contracts all the hauler has to do is pick it up and deliver it. Akin to Real life its like no touch freight. Truck Driver arrives at the shipper, to a trailer thats already pre loaded. All they do is hook up, drive to were they are going and drop it off.
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That’s a little bit naive because a hauler can be shut out from the delivery location in EVE, whereas a real-life hauler can just call the police to get things delivered or drop the package off at a neighbor’s place. None of which is possible in EVE, and currently a huge portion of the available public courier contracts (which are not outright disqualified because of extremely poor rewards) are docking rights scams. Please do not spread misinformation. You are ISD, people believe in the stuff you write.
That said, courier contracts are indeed extremely helpful institutions and they can be extremely rewarding (mostly in terms of ISK rewards, but also if you manage to outsmart dumb docking rights scammers). The reason why there are so many courier contracts with extremely poor rewards compared to their to be transported volume or value is simply because of player stupidity: Players still transport those terrible contracts as fillers/because of boredom/just because/whatever reason, which reinforces the notion in contractors to setup more of these contracts. A never ending cycle of dumb, basically.
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