Multiple passenger contracts

[Pleb]

It is already possible to have more than one passenger contract (although I personally find it easier just to do one at a time), but one thing that annoys me sometimes is the fact that you are only every transporting one passenger to somewhere. Would/could it be possible to have a single contract that required you to transport more than one person somewhere? For example, you could have a contract that three people want to travel from the Lave system to the Isinor system (I know, short trip!) that pays a certain amount of credits.

I know this was possible in Frontier (ooo, forbidden word!) but would it be possible in Oolite? I imagine the current code in the source would probably need to be reworked...

[Diziet Sma]

Nice idea!

[JazHaz]

The text based game, Ulite, also allows multiple passenger contracts...!

[Sendraks]

I'm a bit confused by this one.

At present we have one passenger per passenger berth (5tonnes cargo space).
Multiple contracts = multiple passengers = multiple berths.

Is the suggestion here for larger contracts of more than one passenger that would, consequently, pay more than present, but would require te player to have the number of necessary berths. Or are we talking multiple passengers in one berth?

[JazHaz]

Is the suggestion here for larger contracts of more than one passenger that would, consequently, pay more than present, but would require te player to have the number of necessary berths.

Yes.

[Sendraks]

Is the suggestion here for larger contracts of more than one passenger that would, consequently, pay more than present, but would require te player to have the number of necessary berths.

Yes.

Right, that makes sense. It was not clear from the OP, otherwise I wouldn't have asked.

I like the idea, although the trick will be balancing the economy of scale of multiple passengers so x3 passengers does not just = x3 the rate of one passenger over the same distance. Taking multiple contracts should always be more profitable on a single passenger basis, but the larger jobs represent the convenience of not having to hunt out multiple jobs along the same route.

Also - quick question - how is the cost of a passenger contract calculated by the game? Is it a case of how far the journey is or does it also take into account the relative safety of the destination system and also the most likely route?

I'm just wondering about the possibilities in 1.79 onwards for more variety in passenger contracts. Stuff like ferrying assassination targets which pay significantly more than the regular work.

[pagroove]

For related ideas. See also here:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... passengers

[cim]

I like the idea, although the trick will be balancing the economy of scale of multiple passengers so x3 passengers does not just = x3 the rate of one passenger over the same distance. Taking multiple contracts should always be more profitable on a single passenger basis, but the larger jobs represent the convenience of not having to hunt out multiple jobs along the same route.

It's easy enough to do technically: the easiest way would be to award extra sole passengers with the contract with the same destinations and deadlines, which could be tried out by OXP. As you say, balancing it would be tricky - too high and it makes it very easy to get a very high value contract, too low and no-one ever takes them. Bearing in mind that you have to have a freighter before you can carry sufficient sole passengers that meeting all the deadlines becomes tricky, perhaps 25-50% per extra passenger would be about right: still better than freight on the longer routes, but almost certainly not as good as taking single passenger contracts.

Also - quick question - how is the cost of a passenger contract calculated by the game? Is it a case of how far the journey is or does it also take into account the relative safety of the destination system and also the most likely route?

A combination of:
- number of jumps on the "least jumps" route (rises faster than linearly, so long routes are much better)
- player's reputation
- distance in LY
- destination system government (only really has a significant effect on the price of short trips)
- random variation
Additionally in 1.79 the price is further modified by
- the danger level involved in taking the contract
- the passenger's caution levels (more cautious passengers will pay more but demand a higher reputation)
- the passenger's urgency to get where they're going (more desperate passengers will pay a larger fraction up front and not demand as high a reputation)

[Diziet Sma]

perhaps 25-50% per extra passenger would be about right: still better than freight on the longer routes, but almost certainly not as good as taking single passenger contracts.

The way this worked in the (Victoria, Australia) taxi industry way back when I was a driver, was as follows:

If you had multiple fares proceeding along a common route, (called Multihire) each passenger paid 75% of whatever the metered fare was displaying at their destination. So each individual passenger got a 25% discount on what the trip would normally cost them, but overall, the driver would make about 50% more than they would have done for a single fare going the full-distance.

[SirArian]

This could be interesting. Maybe you could put it in the Taxi Galactica OXP? It doesn't sound like it would be too hard to code. (Coming from a person who has no clue what he's talking about...)