Oolite Bulletins

Best of luck!

CptnEcho wrote:

Do passenger contracts improve one's rating towards cargo contracts?
I seem to recall a thread of discussion about it and cannot remember if they did or didn't and if that was something that would be changed for the better.

No, passenger and cargo reputation have no influence on each other. Passenger rep is maintained as a separate key in your save file...

And sometimes you get an offer you just can't refuse:

And it only takes less than 4 tons of cargo space

Eric Walch wrote:

And sometimes you get an offer you just can't refuse:
And it only takes less than 4 tons of cargo space

I must admit that this looks like the game could use some balancing concerning cargo contracts. I'm flying a ship with 50t of space - and usually cannot get any contract, because that is not enough. This does indicate that there should be more different contracts, from a few tons up to those which require the anaconda or dredgers, probably also with some increase concerning the payment as there are not too much of these big ones around.

The next point is that such lucrative deals with few t of cargo requirement and high profit would surely need a small, fast and well armed ship. However, I still fail to see a way how I could get up to such contracts without flying a slow and much less combat capable cargo ship.

Screet

Eric Walch wrote:

And sometimes you get an offer you just can't refuse:

And it only takes less than 4 tons of cargo space

And some people just can't resist bragging....

Nice one.. can't wait 'til I score one that big...

Screet wrote:

Eric Walch wrote:

And sometimes you get an offer you just can't refuse:
And it only takes less than 4 tons of cargo space

I must admit that this looks like the game could use some balancing concerning cargo contracts. I'm flying a ship with 50t of space - and usually cannot get any contract, because that is not enough. This does indicate that there should be more different contracts, from a few tons up to those which require the anaconda or dredgers, probably also with some increase concerning the payment as there are not too much of these big ones around.

The next point is that such lucrative deals with few t of cargo requirement and high profit would surely need a small, fast and well armed ship. However, I still fail to see a way how I could get up to such contracts without flying a slow and much less combat capable cargo ship.

Screet

If you research the whole cargo-contracts thing.. (yes, there's a lot of reading involved) it's not as unbalanced as it seems on the surface...

and if you want to get to where you are offered the lucrative contracts without having to get a cargo-clunker, doing a whole bunch of UPS jobs will get you there...

Diziet Sma wrote:

and if you want to get to where you are offered the lucrative contracts without having to get a cargo-clunker, doing a whole bunch of UPS jobs will get you there...

Maybe, but with UPS I only very rarely am being asked for help. Furthermore, it's seldom to shoot down Eric, it's most often only a few parcels. Strangely, UPS practically only asks me to help them when I've already got another mission running...and if that's not the case, UPS ignores me. Might just be my luck...

As a side note: The mission to hunt the boa typically forces me to go somewhere else, often far away, thus being incompatible with the current mission I've got. Trying to do that mission also results in my reputation dropping because it appears not to be general for the galaxy, but only for a small local cluster which I then have to leave to fulfill that mission.

Screet

yeah I have to agree there. Generally I've only ever been offered ups jobs when I'm in the middle of doing something else. Is that a bug?

The UPS Courier topic has some info that might help... seems the missions are not that common, and do have a tendency to be offered when you have other things going on...

Dalek, I can sympathise. I had the same thing happen to me.

I find that with a strong courier reputation (which it seems you still have), it can just take one 'bulky' commodity contract to bring back the good stuff.

30 - 35t 'bulky' commodity contracts do crop up every now and again, and my experience with courier reputations has been: if you're not getting the GPG contracts offered, then if you see any contract you can make, you have to take it.

Personally I quite like the balance currently in the game with contracts - it would just lead to galactic inflation if we could all get GPG contracts everywhere we looked....

ps If you don't have the extra cargo bay fitted to your Cobra, you really need to get it fitted (takes a bit of in-game time to fit, so perhaps best not to do it mid-contract). I have never seen a 20t contract...

Yes, things seem to be happening again. After a few more jumps I finally got an offer that made me around 100 cr. After that I started to get some better ones again.

I do wonder if this needs some balancing. Your rep does seem to drop rather fast if you jump a couple of times without doing one. My rating was still excellent, but it took ages to find another job again. Maybe it should still be a bit easier if you are 'excellent?'

dalek501 wrote:

Yes, things seem to be happening again. After a few more jumps I finally got an offer that made me around 100 cr. After that I started to get some better ones again.

When you get the better ones you often can find more than one on your route. Make sure you have more than one contract running. That way, even when your rating might drop and you don't get the good ones, you still have active deliveries to bring your reputation up.
The balance is good, it just needs tactics adapted to it.

I find that most of the spectacular GPG contracts seem to appear in the middle of another contract.

So to take some of the guess-work out of deciding whether I can accept a second / third / fourth contract at the same time and still be able to make delivery by the required deadlines, I put together a basic spreadsheet.

My most lucrative courier trip from A to D via B and C netted me over Cr200k. Ker-ching! Not that I'm bragging...

Yeah, maybe the balance is ok.

The trouble is I suppose that I dont want it to be my 'lifestyle' in the game. I was only really doing it to save up quicker for a new ship, and therefore perhaps its right that you shouldn't be able to just dip in and out when you want and grab a contract for 100,000 credits!

Now... my only problem is.... Supercobra or Vector?

dalek501 wrote:

Now... my only problem is.... Supercobra or Vector?

Whatever... I want a neoCaduceus myself!