to be honest i dont like the idea of a collateral prepay system since its a huge disadvantage for new players - they have to invest when having nothing though they want to run missions to build up their wealth. So theres a workaround necessary.

I already wrote that those material boxes cant be opened by anyone else than the mission contractor, of course recycling them shouldnt be possible neither.
Remains destroying them and keeping them even if mission timer runs out.
Possible solutions here: disable the destroy option for them or if per coding possible/easier (dunno) if anyone hits destroy or still has the box when the timer runs out, let it be "teleported back" into the missioncontainer.

This is where I have an issue..... Nothing in this game comes with out risk, That being said, I'm totaly against this magical teleport of transport goods back to mission start point. I'm also 100% against the hauler not being able to crack the seal and take your goodies. It is a very delicate ballance here, as with your system I could package all my goodies throw them in a hauler and not give 2 craps if it even makes it to its future home(NO RISK).

With that other game if you wanted your BattleShip brought to a new system you stripped it created the request made the collateral as high as the ships natural cost and payed them X ammount to bring it. Its not that hard to set up smaller orders so the newer players can haul stuff for you. I did that in EVE very effectivly create multiple small orders that any new player could afford the collateral and bump up the payment a tad and your stuff would be 100 jumps in a few hours no problem.

I think the overall Idea is great and has a place in a game like this however it is a very delicate ballance. To easy and every one will exploit it to hard and no one will use it.

The size, value, and destination will determine if a new player can do the PLAYER created missions, they still have access to do all the beginning missions.

While corps like PPAT could create some small, cheap missions for new players, the real transport missions are going to be large volumes of materials moving to or from beta (gamma) which would be very risky for new players to attempt.

Working from there, you see an issue where as the contracter, you really want your goods to arrive at the destination and your willing to pay for someone else to take the risk. But if as a contractor, your not only paying for deliver, but risking losing the materials to some new player over-reaching, then the system won't be used.

If there's NO risk for the contractor however, than it can be abused too easily. Instead of risking moving a scarab load of t4 modules from alpha to beta, I create a contract and have an alt accept it, so if the transport is lost I don't lose the load.

I've thought about contract hauling a lot.

About the only way it works, is if the hauler provides collateral at a known amount, then gets that back, plus a negotiated percentage when it arrives at the destination.

The goods being transported are still packaged, so the hauler doesn't know what's inside, only the value of container assigned by the contrator.

The package is FFA loot. Once it's opened, either by the contract being fulfilled, the hauler, or as loot, the collateral amount is transferred to the contractor.

As long as the package is delievered unopened, the collateral and the % hauling fee will be transferred to the hauler.

Since the value of the haul is always a % of the collateral, the risk is a known quantity for the hauler, regardless of what is actually in the container.

The contracter assumes some risk if they under value the cargo to get a cheaper haul, and its lost of pirated.

The 'game' then is "Is the cargo under or over-valued".

The contractor can put a 10m NIC price on a 4U package. The hauler will get 5% if they deliver it, and earn 500k NIC.

The hauler can choose to open the package, forfeiting the 10m NIC. They just 'bought' the package for 10m. If the contents of the package are worth more than 10M, they 'win' and the contrator loses.

The hauler also needs to decide if 500k of profit is enough to risk bringing the package to the destination. If the contract doesn't get filled at 10m NIC, its likely that the destination is too risky for the reward, so the contractor may have to increase the value to 20m NIC.

Since the % is fixed, the hauler can't know if the price is high because of the cargo, or because of the destination. This makes the decision to open the box much more difficult. It also creates a proper balance in goods being put up for player contracts versus just hauling it yourself.

The '5%' may need a little tweaking, possibly being adjusted by the 'size' of the load also. +1% for loads over 12u, and additional 2% over 80u, 2% over 240u - meaning if you contract for a lithus load or above, you'll pay 10%, but the 'value' of the load is likely to be lower.

In this way, some contracters will put a lump of coal in a package worth 10m NIC, and hope its not delivered. If it is, it will cost them 500k.

If the container is FFA dropped, the looter can either open it, or finish the delivery. The 'pirate' however will get only the 5% fee, and the hauler will still lose the collateral.

If the contractor is trying to be sneaky, and put 100M NIC of modules in with a lithus load of titan, they can create a large U at a low contract price. But the hauler has less to lose by opening these, and maybe finding 'gold'!

The number of contracts you can have active will be an extensions, so players don't create 1000 1M nic coal bombs. The 5%+ fee is non-refundable, so if you create the contract and cancel it, you lose that amount. You can however, like market orders, adjust the contract price (i think its every 10 min). However, dropping it to 1 nic to avoid the penalty will likely mean it will be sniped and opened, so some risk there in trying to avoid the fee.

The 'unknown' true value of the cargo should be suffcient to ensure that 'most' haulers won't risk opening the packs, especially the more expensive ones, where the contractor may only have bumped up the price to entice a hauler to actually move it; for instance 240U of titan with a value of 20M so the hauler will get 1M profit if the move it, but only about 2M in goods if they open it.

Sounds like a cool idea, and once we have a bigger world with more players and a lot longer transports a viable profession
I think Arga seems to have a pretty solid idea for how to make it work, it should be possible to steal the cargo, pirate a hauler etc, it adds a dimension to it and also makes it harder to abuse.

Just to round off the idea,

The contract should time out in 72 hours after it is accepted.

A couple of bonus features:

Contracter can offer an additional % bonus for early delivery, faster than 72 hours. Fast delivery should be a bonus, and not a penalty, the 72 hours allows for internet connection issues and IRL emergencies that may delay the hauler.

Hauler reputation.

Each positive delivery earns the hauler a better hauling 'score'. Each failure, regardless of how the cargo was undelievered, provides negative scoring. The score is based on the package value, so delivering 100 5 nic packages won't skew your reputation to the good so you can ninja 1 100m nic package.

Example: Arga has a hauled reputation value of 30m NIC, meaning he has sucesfully delivered 30m or more NIC worth of goods. The system caps at 30m (for example), otherwise if you delivered 4B NIC, you could ninja 100m and still have a very high score. This is just a rough sketch of the system.

Reduction in Collateral.

Experienced and/or respectable haulers can get a reduced collateral rate, reducing the amount of capital they have to invest in each move. Contraters choose a hauling reputation level and discount for each load.

For example, a 10m NIC load, the contract may assign a 0, 10%, 20%, 30% collateral discount for negative, low, med, or high reputation. Better discounts will attract haulers with more positive experiences, which reduces the contracter risk of lost or stolen packages. The contracter is willing to share 'more' risk with the hauler based on past experience.

All of this is still anynomous. The contracter doesn't know the hauler, only thier reputation level. The hauler doesn't know the contracter, only the source and destinations.

Edit: I lack the button to remove unwanted double post

I don't see the problem there. If one accepts high collateral job into hostile territory without thinking whether he can actually complete it he should suffer the consequences of his stupidity.

Of course if mission to beta outpost are allowed then it needs to give warning if the outpost is locked. Or maybe allow only corps with access to that outpost create the missions there and accepting the mission gives you temporary access.

If the loads in a terminal yes, but I'd like to have the possibility for lets say miners/farmers to give that mission even out in the terrain. Then you would have to drop the containers somehow near you and would be able to see who approaches it.

So theres an additional risk for haulers to pay the collateral at accepting the mission and be shot by the contractor (or his alts/friends; a pact can be misused too) if that place is at beta without the haulers even touching the load. They wouldn't only rise their kills and get the loot but even get the collateral since the mission cant be completed...
Even if there is a reputation (though i really really like that idea) for both - haulers and contractors - if its another account shooting the hauler there wont be a standing-punishment for the contractor at all.

uh, now theres even something else coming up my mind. in my system u would have seen which agent the contractor is - but with reputation,of course, anonymity would be better. So in the contractor column of mission windows what could be shown - something like "Agent (45)" with the brackets number as reputation points?