Weird Harold wrote:Jonathan_S wrote:And For freighters there's really only an potential economic advantage if you can advertise, and charge for, the quicker trips.
Not really. You can just accept and fulfill twice(*) as many contracts by servicing other systems. No need to advertise faster service, just take more contracts.
(*) approximately twice, depending on degree of update and astrography of the routes involved.
Unless I'm overlooking something (hardly impossible) wouldn't that only work if:
a) You delivered in half the time - wouldn't take long for it to be obvious you had much quicker transits than you'd expect from a freighter.
b) You only took on half cargoes (or less) - pickup A, pickup B, deliver A, deliver B. Only works if the route allows for that - and never being avalible to contract full cargos might eventually trigger suspicion.
c) you can a place between these routes to cache the 1st cargo while you ran over to pick up the overlapping 2nd cargo? (Then obviously go back, switch cargos, pick up a 3rd, come back switch back to the 2nd and deliver it, pick up a 4th; repeat)
And even then, unless you were playing transponder games - anybody who got a look at the records of too many systems you visit will realize you're showing up places too soon and too often. So yes, it looks like with appropriate gymnastics you could make some money without directly advertising your quicker speed. But you still risk that info leaking out - at which point you become a ship of significant interest.
