Skip to main content

Back to Trucking

It seems for now I am back to moving my own things.

As is my wont, the other evening I logged in and did all of my buy orders for my store. I bundle them up in packages just under a billion ISK and write contracts to Red Frog. I keep just under a billion ISK in the wallet that does the buys. This way I do not accidentally over buy and over contract. I have once screwed up on a collateral and ate the loss for it. It was a lesson learned and I try to be careful.

Imagine my surprise, when I checked the next day to find out one contract had been accepted and the second rejected. I had a sneaking suspicion that prices had changed. I went to Red Frog Freight's website and sure enough, my run that used to cost 12.5 million now costs 17.5 million.

They sent a very polite Eve Mail to my corporation CEO linking me to their price change notification.

This quote caught my attention:
"Since the launch of Rubicon expansion, we have been closely monitoring the situation, to avoid any harsh and quick decisions. As you are probably aware - Rubicon has introduced some warp mechanic changes - that in most cases made the freighter trips even longer and effectively requiring more time to dedicate from our pilots. "
I remember complaining about this and being told, "Oh the changes are not that bad. It's only a mild difference. I doubt Red Frog will raise their prices." I'm not surprised by the change nor am I upset with it. These are the ripples of a game mechanic change. I now stress over my jump freighter leaving high sec. The boys have basically abandoned battleships for anything other than support fleets or preplanned ops (if we ignore Floor's Vaguer obsession).

Maybe we shouldn't be rolling around in battleships. That may not be the Eve that CCP sees. Still, it's sad to look at them, sigh and sell off ships that they no longer want to fly. I wonder if some of this will be looked at again. I hope so.

For now, I'm back to doing my own trucking. I wrote a contract to PushX that has not yet been picked up. The prices are good but I am used to the swift turn around that Red Frog tended to give me. My route is a bit off the normal travel lanes. After twenty four hours of sitting, I decided to go and move it myself. I'll have to figure out what will be the best way to handle this. I normally write two to three contracts to Red Frog each time I do a buy for TCS. That is a lot of hauling for just me to do in between everything else.

I have a second account who can haul. I may have to start dual boxing these trips. It means the investment of another freighter. While inconvenient, it is not a terrible problem. I may accept the price increase. I'm sure I waste that much ISK doing other things. I could jump things down but that would become pricey quickly and my limited cargo hold would still cause me to move hulls across high sec empire.

Ahh well. Such is the aspect of Eve. I'll figure out this little speed bump soon enough.

P.S. Public contracts:

I got so excited about doing my interview I forgot an entire piece of the blog!

My problem with public contracts is that I worry they will not be done fast enough. It is something I am going to have to play with to see how quickly they are filled.


  1. public courier contracts are your friend!

    1. Whoops! I forgot to comment on them. A P.S added!

  2. Get Ascendancy implants (just not the omega) + WS-615 to your freighter pilots. Almost double speed!

  3. I'm a little confused by RF's reasoning. The warp speed of a freighter used to be .85 AU (with implants). Now it's 1.4au (or thereabouts). The "time to warp" increase doesn't kick in until after the warp begins (i.e., when the speed indicator drops to zero and then warp is initiated). I'm having a hard time doing the mental math that arrives at it taking longer.

    1. The entering and exiting warp really increases the time. My freight run takes longer.

  4. I find that, unless you make it a rush order (with extra cost involved), PushX won't finish the contract until the 3rd day, sometime before the contract would expire. It has been cheaper than Red Frog, and I've not been in any hurry, so it hasn't mattered to me. Only rarely is the contract completed before the last day, and I'm only 2 jumps off the Jita-Amarr run.

    1. I'll try to remember this. My logistics are a two step project. First to the high sec staging system and then jumped into low sec.

    2. Blogger ate half my reply, here's the rest...

      Mind you my contracts might be worth billions but they don't take up a lot of cargo space. A frigate can handle the vast majority and most of the rest will easily fit into a blockade runner with 4k m3 cargo space.

      With public courier contracts you could probably ship straight to Bosenia from where ever you want.

      I've shipped to Kamela a few times. IIRC the shipments were all around 3 billion collateral, I paid 20-25 million ISK per shipment and they all got delivered within 24 hours.

    3. I have a bunch of blueprints I need moved. I'll give them a try and see how it goes.

    4. FYI, I sent another load from Dodixie to Kamela tonight. A fairly long trip with 1 jump into low and I wanted it delivered quickly so I paid a bit more than usual.

      56 sisters launchers (both types), paying 30 million with 3 billion collateral. I setup the contract and logged off... Logged back in an hour or hour and a half later to check on it and it'd already been delivered.

      Black Frog would have charged 95 million for the same shipment and probably taken a lot longer too.

  5. Like anon said "Public courier contracts are your friend!"

    I used to be a big fan of RFF too until I started experimenting with public courier contracts. Now I use nothing but public courier contracts. On average my contracts now get delivered much faster, to far more places, with no artificial courier corps imposed restrictions and at a lower cost too.

  6. Btw, not sure if you already accounted for that, but courier contract costs are not only for a service (time) but also for an insurance. While ice mining I calculated that I would have to mine and ship refined ice valued about 400 *billion* before having lost an own freighter would amortize itself. And that's without considering the comfort (i.e. opportunity cost) of not having to fly yourself.

    In your case with the longer route and with the new, higher costs, it comes down do about 130bn. You probably manage that turn around in your market before losing a freighter :), but still, it's something to consider.

  7. You can find other types associated with insurance pertaining to simply all about every conceivable event. your most common insurance will be probably life insurance, in which gives a monetary benefit for you to a great decedent's family or perhaps additional allocated beneficiary.Truckers Insurance


Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memoirs - Part One: Virtual Worlds



CSMX - Post #20




The Charm of the Familar



