I would like to suggest an NPC courier service for small and medium cargo deliveries.
The core idea is not simply NPC delivery. It is an NPC logistics company that remembers what kind of customer you are.
The important part is that this should not be instant asset teleportation and should not replace player hauling.
The basic idea is simple.
A player creates a delivery request from station A to station B, selects cargo from their hangar, pays a delivery fee, and an NPC courier physically transports the cargo through New Eden.
Delivery takes real time depending on distance and route. The service could have limits on cargo volume/value and become increasingly expensive for larger or more valuable shipments, leaving serious logistics and bulk hauling firmly in the hands of players.
Customer reputation should matter
I think reputation should be more than a simple loyalty level that increases every time you use the service.
The courier company should treat the player as a customer with a history.
A new or unknown customer starts with conservative limits. The company does not know who you are, what kind of cargo you normally ship, or whether doing business with you tends to cause problems.
Over time, successful deliveries build a record of reliable business. This could affect:
- maximum cargo value and volume;
- available delivery distance;
- delivery fees;
- access to faster or priority delivery;
- insurance terms;
- which security areas the company is willing to serve.
But reputation should also be possible to damage.
For example, repeatedly sending NPC couriers into obviously dangerous situations, using the service in ways that consistently result in losses, or otherwise abusing the company could make that customer more expensive to serve. The company could increase prices, reduce insurance coverage, lower cargo limits or eventually refuse certain contracts.
This creates an important distinction:
The reputation belongs to the customer, not the courier.
The NPC company is effectively asking: “How much do we trust this capsuleer’s business?”
That also creates interesting choices. A player with a long history of safe high-sec industrial deliveries might eventually receive excellent commercial terms. Another player whose shipments regularly end in explosions might discover that the courier company now wants considerably more ISK to accept the risk.
Reputation therefore becomes part of the economics of logistics rather than another progression bar.
Delivery directly to a ship in space
One of the more interesting uses of the system could be delivery directly to a player’s ship in space, rather than only station-to-station transport.
Imagine that I am running a mission and realise that I am running out of ammunition or missiles.
Instead of abandoning the mission, docking, buying ammunition and flying back, I could place an express order and request delivery to my current location.
The ammunition is purchased and loaded onto an NPC courier ship. That ship then physically travels through the normal route to reach me.
There is no teleportation and no magical transfer of items.
When the courier approaches the delivery area, I receive a notification with an estimated arrival time and location.
Now the responsibility shifts partly to me.
I should check the area, use d-scan, watch Local, and make sure that the delivery point is reasonably safe. When the courier arrives, I meet it and receive the cargo.
If everything goes well, the delivery succeeds and my reputation as a reliable customer improves.
But if the courier is destroyed, the cargo is actually lost. I have already paid for those missiles, and I do not magically receive another copy. Depending on the insurance model, I may lose some or all of the value.
My customer reputation may also suffer because the logistics company just lost a ship while servicing my order.
This creates a very different gameplay loop from simply pressing a “deliver” button:
Order → courier travels → prepare the delivery area → protect the courier → receive the cargo.
Low-sec and null-sec deliveries
This could become especially interesting outside high-sec.
If I request a delivery into low-sec or null-sec, I am deliberately asking the company to send a courier through dangerous space.
Other players should be able to find, intercept and destroy that courier under the normal rules appropriate to that space.
The delivery therefore becomes a real object moving through New Eden rather than a timer running somewhere in the database.
A hostile group could potentially notice or intercept deliveries heading deeper into their territory. Friends could scout the route or escort the courier. The customer might choose a safer meeting point instead of ordering directly to their current location.
NPC logistics would therefore create more player interaction instead of removing it.
Dangerous deliveries should naturally cost much more, and the company could require sufficiently high customer reputation before accepting them at all.
Repeatedly losing couriers because I keep ordering deliveries into hostile space should have consequences. My reputation could fall, insurance conditions could become worse, prices could increase, or the company could eventually say:
“No. We are not sending another ship there for you.”
That is the part of the reputation system I find most interesting.
Reputation is not simply a loyalty reward for using the service frequently. It represents the logistics company’s experience of doing business with that particular capsuleer.
Why add this?
There is currently a large gap between moving everything yourself and arranging player courier contracts.
For example, an industrial player may buy a relatively small amount of materials in Jita and need them delivered a few jumps away to a manufacturing facility. Flying a hauler personally for every small industrial job quickly becomes repetitive, while a player courier contract can be excessive for a small shipment.
An NPC express service could fill that middle ground.
It could also create an ISK sink through delivery fees.
It should NOT replace player hauling
This is important.
NPC delivery should be deliberately worse than player logistics for serious cargo.
Possible restrictions could include:
- limited cargo volume and/or value;
- relatively high price per mÂł;
- slower delivery than an organised player hauler;
- limited operating range;
- no deliveries to dangerous space, or significantly different rules there;
- no guaranteed emergency delivery.
Large industrial operations, valuable cargo and bulk logistics should still strongly favour player hauling and courier contracts.
The NPC service would primarily handle the equivalent of small parcel delivery, not freighter logistics.
Example
I buy materials in Jita for a manufacturing job three jumps away.
Instead of undocking my industrial ship, I select the materials, choose the destination station, see something like:
Cargo: 6,000 mÂł
Route: 3 jumps
Estimated delivery: 25 minutes
Fee: 420,000 ISK
I confirm the order and continue doing something else.
Later the cargo arrives at the destination.
For me, the important distinction is:
The cargo travelled. It was not teleported.
That preserves the geography and logistics of New Eden while removing some repetitive low-value hauling.
I think something like this could be useful for industrialists, newer players and people operating around trade hubs without undermining hauling as a player profession.
I would be interested to hear what restrictions or pricing would be necessary to keep such a system balanced.