[Suggestion] Ferry Passenger Routes

[JimSan]

Ferry Routes

This idea is a refinement of the original idea of Bulk/Ferry passenger missions stated in this 2.2 Beta Thread, Image borrowed from original thread, Created by CMDR-AD.​

While the current Passenger missions are all well and good, they don't really represent how people would envision passengers, well not bulk passengers at least, we've got Taxi missions, Tour guides and Luxury Limo Rides, however mass transit is somewhat lacking, and it could be implemented in a way to make it somewhat different than standard trading (hopefully anyway), but as I've said before, I don't want to be a Taxi nor a tour guide, neither do I want to wait hand and foot for Limo rides, I would just like to shuffle round the common folk and hope that one of them doesn't try and start a fight because his in flight meal was the fish when he ordered the steak.

Basic Ideas
When you pick up the mission, it'll just tell you which stations you'll be making stops at (random picks from the hubs above), the min landing pad used and the maximum amount of passengers you'd likely to see, which can be more than you can ever carry for popular routes, when you accept the mission it'll inform you that you've picked up X amount of passengers, you never select which passengers get on board, just like how people just get on board current mass transit systems.
When you've got to the next stop, it'll tell you that some have left due to that's where they want to be or more will hop on, but you wouldn't have to go into the passenger lounge for this to happen, just wait on the pad and they'll move by themselves, once given the all clear that there's none left or your full you can proceed to the next stop.

This could carry on through the stops till you've reached the return station, which then you'd have to go back to the lounge to either finish or repeat the route, possible adding a Rep buff each time you repeat the loop to each stop's controlling faction etc, maybe even a bonus to encourage repeat loops.
The route's popularity could also be affected depending on the state of systems in the area, lots of Boom states would make more people want to go there, but routes passing through War zones wouldn't, adding a level of dynamic to the routes.

Payment
Now payment for the Ferry mission with be two fold, first there would be the usual payment upon completion of the route, then the commander would get a percentage of the passenger's fare, for high yield routes which have larger passengers passing through, the routes wouldn't give that much of a percentage of the fare (say a max of 15% per passenger), but on low yield routes it'll be fairly good (between 25 and 50% for the best routes) which would make them fairly attractive for smaller ships.

Ferry Mission Events
As with how things happen on a plane, we have no idea who boards the Ferry ship, so could have some somewhat random (depending on what stops you've been at) events happen that give the player options on how to handle them, however most of the time things should be a fairly straightforward trip, say 50% of them should be that, a good day is when nothing goes wrong.

Then there would be Neutral events, ones that mostly just bother the player but can give mild rep boosts if done or mild rep loses if failed, such as finding out you have a sick passenger on board, you could either take them to the nearest High-Tech or Risk their health, with a chance of them dying giving a slightly worse rep lose. Something along the same lines could be done for forgotten luggage or on the wrong route for other redirection events (both of those require heading back the way you came).

Then there are Bad events, which give another risk/reward option, only example I've thought up is having a wanted passenger on board, the Police would interdict you, then inform you to hand in to nearest port of their jurisdiction, or you can accept a hefty bribe from the wanted passenger, but in doing so you also become wanted like them and rep loss.

Then there's the Worst events, unfortunately everyone should know how these could pan out, they would range from having a bomb on board, a gunman holding hostages or even being held hostage yourself by an assassin who wants one of the passengers on board to have an early retirement, these would give three options on how to handle them, I'll go with the bomb threat as an example, you could simply comply with their demands, risk them bluffing about the bomb (do you really want to risk it?) or just eject the compartment and generally not give a damn about the other passengers in there with them, tis up to the Commander.​

Of course there could be others and also positive events, however this is all that I've thought up so far.

Bonuses
So about getting bonuses for passengers, well one would be to do repeat rounds, wouldn't really give anything more for money but could give rep boosts for helping the local area on that route, it's a possible thing to consider anyway.

Timetable bonus, while there wouldn't be an obligation to keep to the schedule (this is space and anything can happen), keeping roughly on time to what the client has set could give bonus money, say +15% to the Route Stop money (the little extra money you get when stopping at the next stop) when within 5 minutes of the timetable, then +10% when within 10 minutes and +5% for within 15 minutes, after that you'd just get the basic amount etc.

Route types
These would dictate how you would travel during route, but here are some visual representations of how things could be setup.

High Yield
High Yield Routes are between passenger hubs only (as shown in the OP's image above), they have the most passengers and generally require the largest of ships, however they could require the most strictest of timetables to follow (eg. they give far better bonuses for keeping to them)

Loops are simple, go from A-B-C-D-E-A, you'll return back to your start point after doing the entire circuit. Very simple.

Return routes, Simple again, it's a A-B-C-B-A route, just come back after hitting the end along the same systems.

Branch routes are just variants of the two above, and as the pictures show, they add in a off-shoot hub to travel to etc, mostly just add in some variance etc.

Low Yield
These routes are between hubs and surrounding systems of inter-system routes, mostly these are to fill the remains of the transport network, these deal with the low yield passengers designed for smaller ships or to start someone off into the passenger role.

Routes between something like five random systems within a short hopping distance with the passenger hub, the route is to go to the side-system then return to the hub each time, it would be the commuter routes between systems and hubs.

And lastly, Inter-system routes, these can be picked up in any system other than just from a hub, and you just shuffle round the passengers inside the system, did have thoughts that people doing the Hutton Truckers route could make that a job in itself transporting passengers form Hutton to the station at the drop in point.​

Passenger Cabins
Now I've had some thoughts about how would the Passenger cabins would effect things, other than passenger numbers, have thought something like how long they would be willing to stay on board, if we had a steerage class cabin they might only be willing to stay seated at most up to 30 mins between stops, economy up to an hour, business could be a few hours, first class would be a day, considering the route missions would only be for a day at most (for long routes), adding anything more would be silly, but just for reference, Ferry passengers in luxury cabins could stay in there forever (or till they get to their stop), not too sure on this mechanic just yet but it's something to have a think about.
Possible could also have Cabins offer differing fares to gain, for Economy the standard fare could be say... 1,000 CR, for Business it could be 2,500 and for first class it could be 5,000, or if you really want to offer it, 25,000 for Luxury, Ferry Passengers might also want to only travel in a given class, depending on their background, while this might sound a bit too much complication, it could just be random generation given the station wealth and all that lot which dishes out what the passenger pool would be like (50% chance of Econ, 30% Bus, 15% First and 5% Lux).

A Steerage class Cabin would also be something to think about, maximum amount of people in the space available with basic facilities, maybe no escape pod system to fit in more, more or less what Economy Seating is like on current Airliners.

Other
Another thought could be when a route takes you through a permit system, the client could issue you a work permit that gives you access to the systems that require a permit along the route for one jump, this would allow players to visit them locations so long as they have work to do there.

Interesting Thoughts
Thoughts from others that I figured would be nice to discuss and expand upon, will update this section (if I remember) with new quotes that all people can agree is something of interest.

If Ferry Missions were added then the Mechanic could be combined with CGs

So let's say there was a disasters in a system.
You could have the "Ferry Routes" set up to have refugees coming out to camps set up, and Disaster personal being transported in from set Rally points.

Add the Trade CGs bring in the Medical Supplies and the success or failure of the CG in terms of story narrative could be determined by the successes of the CGs.

So we could end up with enough supplies but not enough personnel or vice versa or such.

That was one of the best things about the CGs in the Lugh war. They each represented an aspect in the war and who completed what first effected the outcome. I'd love to see more of that and having passenger CGs could be part of that, building off the Ferry Routes suggested here

Constructive Thoughts and Ideas are Welcome, Would rather have people pitch in their own ideas about it all so the basic idea can be refined and worked out into something that sets Passengers as a whole different to trading cargo.

PS. I mostly want to setup my own Ferry business based in Barnard's Star called Ferries, for now however I'll have to settle for Tours.

Links to the expanded ideas

Remade Passenger Lounge mock up

Ferry Routes Contract mock up

Tramp Routes Contracts mock up

Typical Commuter Announcements

Temporary Contract Livery mock up

Cabin Intercom mock up

Expanded Passenger Events

PVP Aspects to Ferry Missions



Similar Ideas for improving Passenger content

Charter Luxury Passenger routes

 

[JimSan]

Figured this would be worthy of a proper post rather than an edit, have made some (mostly bad) mock up images for how Ferry routes could be implemented into the Passenger lounge, and also to introduce another passenger transport method more in line with the original suggestion thread.

Here we see various routes that are on offer, along with the basic information about the pay you'd receive, might also display other quick info like max passengers likely to encounter for the route and maybe other titbits.

Now here we have the other passenger method that could also be added, while the name might need some work, but to go into detail.
Icons represent High/Low Yield between Passenger Numbers and Fare per Passenger.

Tramp Routes
Based upon the idea of Tramp Trade, it allows the pilot to pick up passengers in a direction they prefer to go rather than set routes by a company, there are positives and negatives to this method, and they are also still subject to the possible events listed above, but first the benifits are that you keep all of the Fares the passengers pay for the journey, all of it goes into your pocket since there isn't a 3rd party involved, however there aren't any bonuses either since again, no one other than the passengers to pay you, there might also be other things to develop off this, but it's another layer that can be worked into the passenger system.

 

[NW3]

Wow, I can see you've put a lot of thought into this. I haven't actually tried any passenger missions yet, so I can't really compare it to what's currently available, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

 

[RedRobe75]

Frontier, please take notes because this clearly is a dimension that is lacking at the moment, and one that could significantly enhance the experience of passenger missions. Could I also point out that passenger shuttle traffic missions TO and FROM and BETWEEN outposts (both intra-system and inter-system traffic) would be something that would be very appreciated. After all, there are people working at outposts but maybe they have families living elsewhere, perhaps down on planets or at starports? Just basically a concept like that of regular helicopter offshore traffic to and from oil rigs.

Last but not least, kudos to JimSan for coming up with this concept.

 

[Sopel3pl]

I see your idea to transport passengers is very similar to my idea of transport cargo.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/302579-Sugestion-Mission-transport-principles-change

 

[JimSan]

Last but not least, kudos to JimSan for coming up with this concept.

Cheers for that, though the original Bulk Passenger idea wasn't mine to begin with (link to original thread is listed), mostly just tried to expand it to encompass all forms of passenger travel one might see in the setting of the game, within reason anyway, although in time it could very well be expanded upon, but we'd need all the basic structure to add onto.

I feel that if Frontier do implement the suggestions above, I think they should try to add in the Tramp Routes idea first as that would give them the basic structure to build upon and to add in the Ferry routes after, just so they wouldn't have to add it all in one go etc.

Intra-system routes also lends to the thought of ships which excel at being within the same system, but have limited jump range for when required, again I do like the thought of bringing back the old Interplanetary Shuttle as a starter Passenger ship, though my original thought with the Shuttle was to upgrade it into a Interstellar Shuttle (aka more or less an unarmed Hauler with some twists to it), though there was a suggestion floating about making them Ship Launched Craft, either option would be good.

-edit since just seen your reply-

I see your idea to transport passengers is very similar to my idea of transport cargo.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/302579-Sugestion-Mission-transport-principles-change

Something like cargo routes, mission contracts to haul whatever is given to you along that route? or something along those lines, have thought that hauling cargo should work more like being hired by a company to haul whatever they want, something similar to heavy goods vehicles now.

 

[Sopel3pl]

Something like cargo routes, mission contracts to haul whatever is given to you along that route? or something along those lines, have thought that hauling cargo should work more like being hired by a company to haul whatever they want, something similar to heavy goods vehicles now.

I was write from perspective "we need cargo from anywhere" but from other side. "We want you to bring cargo to designated place". It's not very different to transport passengers than transport cargo.
Your idea is very good and complexed and in my opinion should be introduced both in cargo and passenger transport. In cargo even there have been trade lines since 1.0

 

[Eben Sheti'ya]

I love these ideas and as an RL bus driver would love the excuse to see how something like this would pan out in Elite. Go on FD give us a reason to undock the Space Busses JIMSAN take some respect for an interesting and worthy post. +1

 

[Armholeeio]

I like this idea, and when atmospheric landing is added I would like little missions to ferry workers to and from the surface in a hauler or adder with a yellow NYC or London black cab inspired paint job regaling my passengers how I had X from Y film in the back last week

 

[Octanoz]

Liked this idea so much I had to register

I'm digging the passenger missions already but this would be cool. What if you set your prices per module per passenger when accepting a ferry or return route mission? Depending on the system's status and population a passenger would decide if they can afford or not. Little bit of RNG (I know, nasty word) to decide how many passengers are wanting to travel and you've got an interesting mission here.

 

[JimSan]

Liked this idea so much I had to register

I'm digging the passenger missions already but this would be cool. What if you set your prices per module per passenger when accepting a ferry or return route mission? Depending on the system's status and population a passenger would decide if they can afford or not. Little bit of RNG (I know, nasty word) to decide how many passengers are wanting to travel and you've got an interesting mission here.

First of all, welcome to the forums, secondly that might be an option to involve some form of haggling which was possible in the previous games, might be something that could be done with Tramp Passenger Routes since Ferry Routes would be a contract from a 3rd person company to provide that service (though haggling could be implemented for how much fare percentage you could get etc), Tramp Routes are just between the passengers/pilot so it could be something that the pilot could haggle about with the passengers, with dynamic changes to how many would be willing to pay that much.

It's quite a good idea, I might try and work on a mock up image for it, but would mostly be the normal passenger stuff we all know already, but the main change would be an indicator showing how many are happy with the fare (possible bonus to making them happy), ones that are content with the fare (they'll pay it, but no bonuses) and those which aren't happy with it and won't board at all, and with your suggestion, make it so passengers would be willing to pay more for better Passenger compartments (though might also depend on the type of passengers in the first place).

I'll see what I could draw up as a mock up, but hopefully it will be something on the right lines.

 

[JimSan]

Here we go, a basic mock up of a haggling screen when picking up the passengers, please note that you don't have to go through all this to do the route, you can just accept it without trying to haggle at all for the basic sum (there would be a button to do so etc) but yes haggling should be a feature in the game, implemented throughout the entire mission board if possible, however the Tramp routes one would focus on the Fare price, I'll go through the two bottom options you could tell the passengers below:

Try to convince them of your worth with another Rank
As you can see in the picture, we're not able to raise the Fare any further and at the current price we have upset some of them, one way to migrate this is to try to convince them that you are worth the cost, perhaps you have a high combat rank so you could reassure their safety, perhaps your exploration rank will convince them that you're well travelled and know your routes well, mostly it's a gamble, do you feel confident that your other ranks will convince them, perhaps maybe even use Military/Power Play ranks to mix things up in specific areas of space.

Offer to Install better Cabins if they wait a moment
This one is a call back to the older games where you could tell the client to hold a moment while you make some more space, well perhaps you could offer to put the disgruntled passengers in better cabins (if possible at location) if they hang on a minute, this could semi-lock the mission to you, once the game notices that you've upgraded them and have enough space the passengers would automatically board, but if you can't then you'd just be able to return to this screen to haggle once again.

Bonuses
Well what kind of bonuses could we get for making them very pleased with their trip? perhaps they'll give you a tip, in Credits, Commodities or information on something interesting, could even spur off a mini story line where you'd hear rumours from the pleased passengers on your trip, perhaps even some hints into what could be the next big thing, though personally I'd be more happy with just a tip with Credits.

 

[Sopel3pl]

Even better than before

 

[JimSan]

Been tad bit busy lately, but have made another mock up, this time showing possible haggling options for a Ferry Passenger mission, most of them are self explanatory, but will list the less explanatory ones below.

Ask if Schedule Bonus is possible
Only really need to ask this if one isn't offered, however asking it will come at a risk, while it will allow you to gain more money/rep, asking this option on a route which doesn't originally offer it means the client now EXPECTS you to keep to that schedule, else you might suffer Rep penalties due to not being able to keep your word.


Offer to have less pay for higher Rep
Just as it sounds really, perhaps you'd prefer to improve your relations with the faction, but they will take a serious cut from your pay package for this option, on the lines of 50% for only a double rep improvement, more of an option if you have tons of money and would rather try to improve your rep with factions.


Provide references from a Favourable Faction
Something like the previous, Try to convince them of your worth with another Rank option, however it's between local system factions, but again comes with a risk, if they are favourable between one another, it's all good for you and you could demand more from the client, however if they aren't favourable or at war, you could have the mission closed there and then, they don't want to offer it anymore to you as they know your allied to their rival, possible even a large rep penalty as well for losing their trust with you.

Ask for a repeat contract
Basically, asking that once you've done the route, you'll get the completion pay but the mission stays with you, and you can complete it again and again till you cancel the mission from your contracts menu without penalty (so long as you didn't start another round, aka still at the first stop), you'd still get paid for it and get bonuses etc as per the original contract specified, however completion pay would be reduced each time you do the route, say 10% each time till you're left with the minimum of 10% of the original contract.

Downside to these routes is that you do not learn more about your passengers (outside events listed above), they are nameless people that just want to get to work in the next system, they generally don't want to interact with you, you are just the pilot of their transport, to them you are nameless as well, they don't give the same bonuses from the Tramp routes, no tips, no titbits of little info, just A to B without hassle if things go well.


Hope to hear any feedback or suggestions to this suggestion so that Passengers get expanded into a more fleshed out representation of mass transit in the 34th Century.

 

[Octanoz]

This is looking very good

What I was thinking with the setting price thing is that you would have passengers pay a portion of their trip. Say you have 8 stops. Passengers going the full trip would pay 8/8. Passengers not going the full trip would pay their stops +1. So someone travelling 2 stops would pay 3/8.

Setting your price low would guarantee high volume but you would also get the most 8/8 passengers. Setting the price high would get you more 2/8 paying passengers but there will be few of them. You would have to find a good balance where you hit the most 2/8 passengers and still get high volumes.

You would get ranks like with the engineers. Where the higher you're ranked, the company will have more insight for you on the profits of a route and you would get a better recommended price, still leaving room to tweak, though. This rank would then also be usable as reference "currency" if you will. You can get better contracts by getting a reference from a company you are rank 5 with. This will cost you a rank with said company. The reference would only work if both companies are with the same superpower and not operating in the same area. You could convince companies to give you better contracts by guaranteeing safety in combat situations. This would fail if you are flying an E grade T6 with a small pulse laser and harmless combat rank but can succeed if you are flying a C+ grade ship with a considerable combat rank. Promising ahead of time completion would be considered against your exploration rank and frameshift drive and thrusters grade. Any haggling would be dependent on your trading rank. Successful completion of the negotiated missions would also increase the appropriate rank.

This may be a little too complicated. What you have drawn up does look more user and developer friendly.

 

[JimSan]

This may be a little too complicated. What you have drawn up does look more user and developer friendly.

First of all, cheers very much for liking the suggestion, and don't worry about over complication, my first thought after reading the original suggestion was making it like the old game Traffic Giant, where each passenger has their own schedule of where they want to be at what time, hoping onto a route which will take them there (either players or NPCs flying that route), but that would definitely be too complicated, working it out on a per route level (a percentage of current passengers want to drop off at which remaining stops along the route) would be easier.

For your first suggestion, that could work, but would have to be similar to the above since passengers would board mid-route as well. But they would only pay for however many stops are left during that route, so that could work just fine.
And your second idea does seem fairly interesting as well, would definitely add quite a bit to the game play I would think, possible could also make it so you could use your influence with the companies to put in a good word to the powers/superpowers they are backed by, but that might make things a little too complicated to balance, but it's a good line of thought and could be something to expand passenger routes onto afterwards.

 

[Octanoz]

We're on to something here! I hope this gets noticed. Would be great if any of this makes it into the game.

So when are we meeting the developers, eh?

 

[JimSan]

Oh I met them last Lavecon... before this idea got thought up however, I have mentioned the original suggestion during the 2.2 Beta period to Sandro, but I figure they've been fairly busy with the current Beta and fixing stuff in general lately, best thing we could do is continue refining what we've got here (and maybe find someone that can draw on the computer better than I can) so that when they do come across this suggestion, they have more to go on for how to expand passenger game play.

 

[JimSan]

Got bored and figured I'd try and create some typical commuter route Announcements using a text to speech site, these are to give more of the impression that there is more than just you in the ship, these announcements are not for the pilot but for the passengers. These would mostly apply to Ferry route missions from clients not Tramp routes.
Also I do apologise for the links to the mp3s, not sure how to embed them into the forum post, a little warning, they might be a tad bit loud.

In Flight Announcement
A Typical in flight announcement to inform the passengers which stops are next on the route, can feature both the client which gave you the mission in the first place (in the example, it'll be Barnard's Star Ferries), would also include the ship model and registration (using my Python as an example, deLacy Python Juliet Indigo Mike), it'll then tell the passengers and remind the pilot which is the next stop in full detail (Mars High in the example) and then end with a little extra fluff.

Docking Announcement
Now this is what you'll hear inside a starport (typically one with an atmosphere), like with most train stations they will inform all awaiting passengers which platform or landing pad in our case, now it'll include a rough time of departure (say +5 mins at time of arrive inside the port) before continuing to inform about the route, then there could be a little bit of fluff (example is the trolley service) before repeating the main details of the route again, this could be something that all commanders inside the port can hear, maybe giving prospecting pirates a little info on the route.

Docked Announcement
Now that we are docked, the announcer welcomes all the new passengers before repeating the route, then they go off to give a little safety warning, in our example they warn to keep all belongings to themselves and to report anything suspicious, this could give a audible warning to knowledgeable Ferry commanders about what they could expect during this leg of the route, but you would never know for sure, just a hint to what you can expect.

Ready Announcement
Now finally this would go with some door closing warning beeps but I couldn't find an appropriate one (apparently South West Trains door closing chime is hard to find), but it's just to let the commander know that all passengers are on board and it's now safe to depart to the next stop, another one which I could of done would be to inform the passengers and the commander that the route terminates there, informing that the contract is complete etc.

 

[Octanoz]

You'd definitely need a message for bumping into another ship / the starport. "Apologies ladies and gentlemen, the spaceline will compensate you for the inconvenience at the next starport". And a HUD message for yourself with payout deduction instead of a fine. Being a contractor and all.