Laser Hits Should Kill Passengers Sometimes

[Phrostbyte]

I've seen laser hits that get through the shields destroy cargo and damage upgrades, but I've never seen a hull-penetrating laser hit kill a passenger. Does that ever happen, or am I making a real suggestion by suggesting that hull-penetrating laser hits be able to sometimes kill passengers?

[Cmdr. Maegil]

That'd be a very, very good idea... if there were enough passenger carrying commanders out there...

[Eric Walch]

if there were enough passenger carrying commanders out there...

I think I transported a passenger once..

[Cmdr James]

And when one is killed you get 1t of meat?

[Commander McLane]

And when one is killed you get 1t of meat?

Only if he was a Green Furry Walrus!

[Phrostbyte]

I have two passenger berths, and they're almost always both occupied. I've personally transported hundreds of passengers across the eight galaxies; it gives me an interesting excuse to visit some of the less trafficked backwater systems. So, if nobody else is doing it, maybe I should increase my fares. Why doesn't anyone else carry passengers? Should I get a business started in the vein of all those Coachwhips, Anaconda Liners and Frog Space Rickshaws?

[Cmdr James]

I tried it, but giving up 5t of space for the kind of money on offer, for multiple hops. Just a waste of time unfortunately. Makes an interesting change once in a while, but doesnt really make sense to me.

[Commander McLane]

Why doesn't anyone else carry passengers?

The question seems to indicate that you never actually did the calculation. Carrying passengers is simply not worthwhile economically. (There is another thread where we discussed the odds of increasing the fees only very recently.)

Just think: Each passenger berth weighs 5t. The average Computer/Furs-milk-runs bring you an average profit of at least 30Cr per t on each jump. This at least 150Cr profit on every jump that you forgo for just installing a passenger berth. Now compare this to the fees, which you get only for a couple of jumps. It just doesn't add up! Remember, with normal trading we are talking about a profit for each jump. So, in your bookkeeping, don't look at the passenger fees, but first subtract 150Cr for each jump you had to make in order to deliver the passenger. The end-result after all subtractions is your net-profit. I'd say in almost 100% of the cases it's a considerable loss! Passenger transport at the current fee-structure is simply not profitable. That's why nobody who has done his maths is doing it.

[Phrostbyte]

Why doesn't anyone else carry passengers?

The question seems to indicate that you never actually did the calculation. Carrying passengers is simply not worthwhile economically.

I may be loosing money carrying passengers, but I make it up in other ways (salvaging the wrecks of those who try to harm my passengers, for example). Of course, this might be why I only have half a million credits and over four thousand kills. Often I carry passengers if I'm going that way anyways, for example with a courrier mission or somesuch, or if they just want to go to a solar system "next-door". But, yes, I was reading that other thread, and I agree -- passenger contracts must be improved.

[Commander McLane]

No problem, and of course you can take passengers as much as you want, if you just like the life of a taxi driver. The beauty of Oolite is that if offers a lot of different careers, and passenger transport is surely on of them. It's just not the one which brings most profit.

And by the way: I don't know whether there is actually code for "somebody wants to harm my passenger" in the game. I doubt it. Pirates will attack you, whether or not you carry passengers. So if you don't carry passengers you will salvage the same number of wrecks, and still have more profit from shipping your cargo.

[Disembodied]

Does anyone know if you can build a good reputation carrying passengers, in order to get juicier contracts later on, as with the F8/F8 cargo missions? Or -- which might be better -- if a good passenger-carrying reputation feeds into your cargo-carrying reputation (perhaps at a slower rate)?

If it did, passenger missions might make more sense. At present, if you want to build a high enough rep to get the really sweet contracts, you are pretty much forced at some point to buy a big ship. If fulfilling passenger contracts added to a player's reputation, then it would mean that pilots could, if they liked, stay with smaller ships without having at some point to do a stint in a barge. It would also mean that a pilot who lost their top ranking -- because of following a long mission, say -- could regain it without having to sell their ship and start hauling bulk loads again.

[Commander McLane]

As Eric Walch found out in the course of our recent discussion of the contracts system, your good reputation as passenger-carrier does not pay off in higher fees. The only effect is that you get more contracts to high government-number worlds, which pay even lower than ferrying passengers to unstable worlds.

And - as you will remember - we already sort of agreed then that something should be done on the passenger-contract system. And you even came up with some nice suggestions.

[Disembodied]

Oh, yes...

If the passenger contracts system got overhauled it might be a nice tweak to let it feed in to your contracts reputation. Although then I suppose the trips would need to be timed, like the deliveries. I say this because after building up an excellent reputation in Galaxy 2, and finally pimping out the Radio Maru in full Wolf MkII Special Edition style-ee, I move on up to Galaxy 3 and find that much of my reputation has failed to travel with me... Mind you, I've still got over 500,000 in cash and my dream ship (now with added Naval Energy Unit!), so it's not really that much of an issue for me personally.

[Commander McLane]

(1) Passenger deliveries are timed. According to what I found while translating descriptions.plist, there are three different endings of a passenger transport, depending on whether you're early, just in time or late. And it seems you get a bonus in the first case and a malus in the last case (and the passenger stumps off your ship very angrily).

(2) That's strange. Your reputation should travel with you to the next galaxy. At least I never heard that an intergalactic jump resets your reputation, and have never experienced this myself.

[Disembodied]

(1) Passenger deliveries are timed. According to what I found while translating descriptions.plist, there are three different endings of a passenger transport, depending on whether you're early, just in time or late. And it seems you get a bonus in the first case and a malus in the last case (and the passenger stumps off your ship very angrily).

Oh. It's been so long since I even looked at a passenger contract, I must have forgotten! But this could mean that it might be relatively simple to feed passenger-carrying results into the reputation score, both positive and negative.

(2) That's strange. Your reputation should travel with you to the next galaxy. At least I never heard that an intergalactic jump resets your reputation, and have never experienced this myself.

Hmm. It's possible that I've maybe just not been looking of late... I did just do the Thargoid Plans mission, so that will have taken up quite a lot of jumping without doing any deliveries. But I don't think I've been offered a single one since coming up from Galaxy 2, where I was shuttling stuff all over...