Sunday, January 5, 2014

Wish List - Contracts

One thing that I hope CCP takes a good look at for 2014 is improving contracts -- both the interface, and functionality. As someone who has setup several thousand contracts over the past year, it is one game mechanic that I'm thoroughly acquainted, and often frustrated with.

Setting up Contracts

-In creating contracts from the station the item is located, it would be nice to have the ability to simply drag and drop items into the contract, as opposed to scrolling through a list of hard-to-read items.

-It would be nice if the contract creation process was condensed into fewer 'steps' and given the ability to set presets for quick navigation. Having to fill out the same information dozens of times, and go through 4 pages of the contract for each one can be extremely tedious.

-It would be nice to be able to setup contracts in bulk. For example, if selecting more than one item, the option to setup multiple identical contracts for each item, as opposed to one contract for all, would be handy. (So, if I select 10 items, and select this option, it will setup 10 identical contracts containing one of each item as opposed to one contract for 10 items.)

Searching/Viewing Contracts

-It would be nice to be able to link a contract search into a chat channel. This would be useful for anyone that sells the same items over and over. Instead of linking specific contracts, you can setup a link to a search in your bio, in an email, in a chat channel, or etc. Clients can then click on this link to get the latest list of available contract for that specific item. (For example, people who sell BPCs, fit ships, alliance/corp contracts or etc. on the regular basis.

Maintaining Contracts

-It would be nice to be able to simply 'renew' a contract when it expired, instead of having to setup a completely new contract after digging the item out of the Market deliveries.

'My Contracts'

The 'My Contracts' interface for querying contracts you've setup or are somehow involved with, needs a lot of work.

-Remove redundancies. For example, when I select 'Finished' as the Status for the queried Contracts, do I really need a Status column that tells me every contract in the resulting list has a status of Finished?

-Add critically needed columns. For example, wouldn't it be helpful to have a column for the price of the contract? Also, a column for the description, so that players can identify their own contracts by something other than [Multiple Items].

-The ability to search your own finished contracts. For example, to find all the Rupture BPCs you sold between two dates, or to find a contract to a specific client.

-When querying contracts on this tab, it would be cool if contracts that are new since you last ran a query were highlighted, so you could easily see what has changed since the last time you looked.


-It would be cool if a contract automatically included links to the fittings of any fit ships included in the contract. This is the interface we are used to seeing when looking at fit ships, and would be more useful than a list.

-The current restrictions on contract amounts is a little odd. For example, a corporation can only setup around 62 contracts (with skills) to it's alliance, and these are taken out of it's 'public' contracts allowance. An individual, can setup 500 contracts, without any skills, to it's corporation, and 21, with max skills to it's alliance, taken out of the public allotment. It pretty much looks like the system was created without taking alliances into consideration and then roughly 'patched' later.

-It would be awesome to have more settings for contracting. For example, contracts available by standings or militia.

-It would be nice to somehow be able to setup Want to Buy contracts for Blueprint Copies sold in LP stores. Currently, there is no way on the Market, or on Contracts to do this.


  1. I'd love to be able to set up courier contracts to/from POCOs.

  2. once you created a contract, if you want to create an identical contract, look at the bottom left corner of that contract... There's a menu and the top option is "Copy". It will start the contract creating process et will try to use the same items and will fill the form.

    It kind of works except it will complain the fitted modules are missing (it will probably try to find them in your hangar - not tested) and it might select the right ship with the wrong fitted modules.... But the forms will be filled.

  3. Re: setting up a contract item 1. If you are in station with the goods you wish to send, open your inventory window and select the desired items (using Ctrl click and or Shift click as needed) then right click and Create Contract on the menu will do what you need.

    I haven't tried it, but possibly the Assets window will have similar functionality.