Contract Shipping - possible game expansion

[William one eye]

In our original design a player must purchase the cargo, and deliver it to a warehouse for a set fee.

As the game currently exists, the most likely uses of this systems would be

1 those building Hideouts that do not have the fleets needed to do so, or those who do not wish to re task or create special fleets to supply their hideouts. These players must be willing to pay an ample service fee to attract shippers willing to offer a contract delivery service.

2 those who wish to move gold and do not have armed ships able to protect the shipments. They may find it better to pay a premium to contract this service rather than risk plunder or to foot the expense of building the ships required for safe transport.

this will create many other opportunities, perhaps stocking warehouses for party cards or maximizing the use of warehouses.
I do suspect this will create a play style of a warehouse player that stocks goods for instant availability. The profitability of such services
I leave to be discovered by the creative players that may use the system.

If a pickup from warehouse feature is added, this would allow player to player trading, but I don't seeing that becoming particularly profitable but it allows for maximum flexibility of the system and a more real world trade opportunity.

[Shadowood]

BUMP!

I need a contract shipper to my hideout asap.

[Maha]

BUMP!

I need a contract shipper to my hideout asap.

give me access to your hideout and i will see what i can do

[Shadowood]

BUMP!

I need a contract shipper to my hideout asap.

give me access to your hideout and i will see what i can do

Its full of booby traps, trip wires, pit falls and a real pissed off Donkey if stole off a drunk guy once... But its in Regis if you want to poke around.

[William one eye]

I would currently find this option very useful. Bump

[Grimrock Litless]

+ 1

[Captain dungeness]

I just read through most of this topic and I would like to try to summarize it in a much simpler way.

I understand this is being discussed as a "Contract" but I believe it can be simplified to a "player-to-player market". The transaction should be fulfilled at the time the crates change owners because the buyer only cares about getting rum to Hannes, not where it came from. Therefore I propose it be a feature in the market rather than a new contract feature. You can either buy goods from other players or buy from the port's market. I believe this would function exactly as described except there would be no delay between accepting and delivery and no need for non-completion fees etc.

How it would be used 1:
I would choose one of my 800k+ warehouses and offer to buy 800k rum there for 15 gold each. I would encourage my guild to sell rum to me for 15 gold instead of the usual 11 gold so that I could cast Rum Festival on my port every few days. New players would love this because it is player-created trade routes and they can make better profits. Currently HELM encourages new players to buy party cards and invest in warehouses but they are rarely able to do so considering the large gold investment and the complexity of the strategy.

How it would be used 2:
At the same time I would find a nearby rum-selling port and offer to sell my rum at 7 gold per crate (I have Warehouse Tycoon tech so I would make a profit). Players without their own tech would buy from me and maybe also sell to me at another port or maybe they would cast their own party cards.

How it would be used 3:
A new player would be able to build new ships much easier since they would be able to buy all resources at one port from players who have done the transporting of wood/iron/tools/cotton.

Summary: Allowing players to buy/sell directly to eachother would open up new possibilities for player-created trade routes and add even more depth to the trading aspect of the game.

-Captain D

[Maha]

I understand this is being discussed as a "Contract" but I believe it can be simplified to a "player-to-player market". The transaction should be fulfilled at the time the crates change owners because the buyer only cares about getting rum to Hannes, not where it came from. Therefore I propose it be a feature in the market rather than a new contract feature. You can either buy goods from other players or buy from the port's market. I believe this would function exactly as described except there would be no delay between accepting and delivery and no need for non-completion fees etc.

interesting. it looks like a win/win proposal, but has some issues i like to mention.
first of all, the developed player with the right tech significantly lowers his risk for he isn't exposed to plunder/skirmish attacks any more. trade would be done by new players who haven't been able to develop the tech themselves while the developed players can 'cash in on their tech investments without the need to operate fleets.
Captain J (who carries some weight around here) had stated before that direct PvP sales are not allowed, all should go through anonymous markets. this, combined with ship-free party trading makes this an ideal business for pirates. now they are able to have a few ship defense and rack in the party trade dough at the same time. OLOD would be the only way to harm their interest, but with anonymous trading it would be a lucky shot or a slip up from a bragging fool.
since the trade would be done by those who havent developed the tech yet, they would be the natural victims for they can still be plundered and skirmished.

to counter some of my concerns it would have to be that each port get a "credit like exchange" for the supplies. only the port product can be sold, only the other supplies can be bought and interest parties can put their buy/sell bids up like they do with the credit exchange. This way profit will be too low for the developed players to make it a replacement for their trade fleets.

[William one eye]

The contract system was designed to allow for anonymous transactions - to protects locations of hideouts, and gold shipments.
It was also designed to not alter the way goods are shipped, just by who.
I have provided an option to not have PVP trading and an option that would allow for it. - pick ups of cargo from a player.
dependent upon if admin finds that a good idea or not.
In addition while it sounds complicated I designed almost all of it to fit with existing pages and pre existing game structure.

I feel direct player to player trading may result in actions that stagnate the game.
Also in your system what drives demand? Perhaps market price would? Seems like a direct player to player market would quickly result in the shipment of only the most profitable cargo to the most profitable locations. A main feature of the contract system is to
hire someone to bring you cargo. If I need wood for my hideout in an open market system, I would have to hope
someone saw the need for wood in my port and make a delivery and that the opportunity cost of a more profitable cargo shipment somewhere else would not take priority. In the contract system I could offer enough money that a delivery would almost be guaranteed. Because you are paying for the the service not the cargo, the value of the cargo becomes almost irrelevant to the shipper. As players need cargo for shipbuilding and hideouts all over the map, I do not feel this will result in a few overly dominant trade routes.

[Shadowood]

I need 100,000 rum to my Hideout in Goroum, stat!!!