OK, be sure you’re sitting down and calm. This will take a little time to process.
Idea: Hauler drones.
How it would work:
From either asset or inventory window, click “activate hauler drone.” New window opens asking for destination, and a list of items in the personal (corporation?) inventory that may be selected up to the M3 capacity of the drone, similar to a courier contract.
Click “go.”
The drone puts those items in its hold, and sets off, and then acts like an NPC, warping to gates until it arrives at its destination.
It can be attacked by players. Possibly attacked by NPCs on gates? Concord would respond just as it would if a player were attacked.
Probably not trackable, possible notification upon arrival. One is limited as to how many one could have operating at once. (5?)
Further thoughts:
Multiple size hauler drones, 500m3, 5000 m3, 25000m3? Could change in size with skill? Specialization T2 drones more HP, faster, etc.
I don’t think any intelligent person would use those, at least for valuable cargoes. If you’re hauling something expensive you can’t rely on NPCs’ brain-fart AI to keep it safe.
I was thinking that this would be a combination of a convenience item for those who move things short distances, and an opportunity for additional content.
Most drones in Eve are not autonomous - they are linked to the ship that launched them and go dormant if that connection is broken. NPC rogue drones are an exception but I’m not sure I’d want to trust them with my stuff!
Most drones are small. Heavy drones are 25M3 - even Excavators are only 750M3 with 100M3 cargo capacity.
Hauling is a player career option in Eve and I don’t believe NPC’s should encroach on that. Asset safety is bad enough - at least there is a hefty fee for that service.
If you would talk about a set of drones that fly out latch on to wrecks and fly them closer similar to tractor beams going from furthest to closest this would have been interesting. Could make some people grab 2 for abbys sites and risk dropping them to lower time a bit but risk them dying to stuff towers etc and noctis could choose to go insane with tractor and salvage drones but then making themselves totally vulnerable.
I think it is an interesting idea, however I think it would not be doable to have drones warping through multiple systems to drop stuff off/pick stuff up.
I think this is only an option for if the player using the drones is on grid with the station/ship/etc. Daft idea? Maybe… but picture this.
You are mining ore that has just been pulled up from a moon and you are 100km off the refinery station… wouldn’t it be useful if you could use drones to ferry your ore to your hanger in the refinery while you stay undocked mining? Alternatively use the drones to ferry the ore to your friendly neighbourhood Orca/Rorqual?
Or… You find yourself cloaked up outside a station that you really need to get into to pick something up but you don’t want to dock in case you get station camped or something. Quickly uncloak, launch hauler drone and re-cloak again. A minute later or so and you have your shiny item that you so desperately needed!
