Frequently it is a courier corps or one of their pilots that picks up the public contract anyhow. The difference is the pool of potential courier pilots is vastly larger. Anyone (a member of any courier corps, independent courier pilots or some random player looking to make a little extra for a quick trip in his PvP fit interceptor) can accept and deliver the contract rather than being limited to just a single corp.
As long as you're paying decent rates the contracts tend to get delivered quickly and all without paying exorbitant "rush" fees or much higher rates for trips into low/null.
As an example I've had roughly 350 million worth of Genolution implants sitting at a low sec station in Devoid for a while that I couldn't be bothered flying manually to pick up. That particular pilot is still flying Vigils, has another month or so to go before he can fly Prowlers and I really don't like doing low/null pickups in anything but Blockade Runners now.
So today I set up a contract to move the implants to the nearest high sec station where I could pick them up on autopilot later in relative safety.
The contract was for a 2 jump trip (1 in low sec) and paying 2 million ISK with 350 million ISK collateral.
Then I put the character on autopilot to pickup some stuff elsewhere and tabbed out for a few minutes to do a few things on another character.
Maybe 10 minutes later, I tabbed back in to do the return trip. To my amazement the contract I'd just entered had already been delivered!
Thanks go out to Naskmatar Deliveries for such incredibly quick service!
Started using public contracts too a while back.
ReplyDeleteHave to say that I enjoy them too, although from time to time it take a bit longer. Guess it's a bit about being lucky and hope they pick it up fast enough.
It happens, but very rarely and usually way out in some barely populated place like The Bleak Lands or in the far reaches of places like Devoid, Khanid and Derelik.
DeleteI usually pay about the same as RFF standard rates for contracts with only high sec jumps, 1 mil per jump for low sec and add 20-50% for contracts with collateral over 2 billion.
Low sec contracts I usually only ship to the nearest high sec station so they tend be short trips of only 1-5 jumps. Also pretty much all of my contracts easily fit into 5k m3 cargo space and most will fit into 200 m3. In other words, almost anyone can pick up my contracts, they don't take up much cargo space, far less require a freighter.
Guess that's partly why then, I usually have contracts out in need of a freighter. Part of my lazyness to haul my own minerals.
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