Contract hauling question

[Hawk1975]

Hey Pilots,

in the WonderWorm discussion Topic we wrote some days ago about making money in Oolite (and for a better way to earn some credits than trading between 2 planets).

Diziet Sma helped me out with a lot of infos about the contract hauling - that after getting a high reputation in the delivery business, the more money you could get the next contract...

I tried it out with passenger hauling contracts - made more than 15 clean (in time) deliverys and got a reputation status like : Congratulations! You are the renowned passenger courier in the Galaxy

But for now it made me sad because the payments for the next contracts are still this low between 50cr. and 5000cr. for a contract.

What i'm doing wrong? Is there much more to finish before some better contracts are offered?
Or is the reputation dependent on the planet where you signed up a contract (only this planet you get better contracts after a succesful delivery?)

I would be grateful for a tip,
Hawk

[Diziet Sma]

Sorry to hear that, Hawk1975.. I've done very little passenger carrying, but that doesn't sound right to me.. I know the contracts payments have been tweaked a little over the last couple of releases (mostly to discourage defaulting, I thought), but surely not by so much as to make them not worth the effort..

Can someone with a bit more experience/knowledge comment on this, please?

I think it's time to load up my much-neglected trading commander (too much time of late spent bounty-hunting and trunk-testing) and check the cargo contracts in 1.77.1.

[Hawk1975]

After a while playing forward, i found the highest passenger Transport contract (with still the highest Reputation):

A delivery from Malama to Teaatis (20 jumps), paid 3048cr in Advance and 12192cr upon succesful delivery...

This is the best contract i ever got offered.

What should i think - If making 1000cr per jump with trading goods between two planets; for 20 jumps there would be a Profit of min. 20000cr

If only straight want to make Money in Oolite, would it be better to be a trader? I hoped not, but now i'm thinking this is really the fastest way.

[cim]

A delivery from Malama to Teaatis (20 jumps), paid 3048cr in Advance and 12192cr upon succesful delivery...

What should i think - If making 1000cr per jump with trading goods between two planets; for 20 jumps there would be a Profit of min. 20000cr

1000cr takes 35TC of goods, though - the passenger only takes 5TC for their cabin.

So you get just over 15000 credits from 5 TC of space, which would only get you about 3000 credits from 20 jumps of optimal trading. If you can find a few more passengers going roughly the same way for similar prices and put them in cabins, you could get almost 100,000 credits for the trip. Even assuming you don't get that lucky, three or four cabins will make a significant profit and still leave you 15-20TC left over in a Cobra III for general trading or shorter-range passenger runs.

Bounty hunting or piracy also pay much better than trading - it's like trading, but you don't have to buy the goods, just sell them for pure profit. That can be triple the profit per TC - or, if you get lucky and scoop a Platinum canister, you can get over 400 credits / TC profit.

Trading is easy and reliable but just about the slowest way to make money in the game.

[Smivs]

Also, don't forget all the free stuff floating around out there. Any cargo pod scooped is 100% profit, and escape capsules are usually insured so you get a payment for the rescue (most of the time). Keep a few TC of empty hold when you launch and fill it up en-route with free money

[Cody]

... and escape capsules are usually insured so you get a payment for the rescue...

If you're running full, it's usually worth dumping a cargo pod in order to scoop an escape capsule.

[Diziet Sma]

So you get just over 15000 credits from 5 TC of space, which would only get you about 3000 credits from 20 jumps of optimal trading. If you can find a few more passengers going roughly the same way for similar prices and put them in cabins, you could get almost 100,000 credits for the trip. Even assuming you don't get that lucky, three or four cabins will make a significant profit and still leave you 15-20TC left over in a Cobra III for general trading or shorter-range passenger runs.

Yep.. only having one cabin is not the way to go.. my fresh-to-the-passenger-business commander has 4 cabins in his Cobby, with 15TC cargo space for opportunistic use.. although starting with zero rep, this is how the first run looks, with all intermediate stops perfectly positioned along the shortest route (I was very lucky, usually some small diversions would be necessary).. so by the time I've done these, I'll be over half-way to maximum reputation. I've since dropped the first passenger off, and picked up a new one while I was there, with a destination nicely positioned between drops 3 and 4 (at Dizaoner) in this screenshot:




My cargo-contracting Commander, on the other hand, already has a good rep, and took on 3 gold and platinum contracts for a little over 60,000.. the furthest one alone paying out almost 40,000.




Hawk1975, you really need to concentrate on having at least 3 contracts on the go at the same time, more if you can comfortably manage it. As Albee found though, don't get greedy, and use the shortest-route display in conjunction with a calculator to ensure you don't cut your deadlines too fine.

@ cim: Do cargo contracts tend to have higher payouts than passengers, or are they roughly comparable?

[cim]

@ cim: Do cargo contracts tend to have higher payouts than passengers, or are they roughly comparable?

The precious cargo contracts are by far the quickest way to make money in the game. They even beat several OXPs which have been criticised as "easy money". Of course, the size of the initial investment needed means that by the time you can start earning that money, you mostly don't need it.

[Diziet Sma]

Of course, the size of the initial investment needed means that by the time you can start earning that money, you mostly don't need it.

I wouldn't say that.. I took on the smaller ones I could afford to begin with, and they rapidly bankrolled me for the more expensive ones.