I tried the Trading Guild's procurement mission. It states - get 17 units of a certain item and you will be reimbursed when you get back. I do the first part of the mission and the 6k cr I have is not enough to purchase all of the 17 units. I get back to the start point with half the shipment, assuming I could do the mission in 2 trips. However, when I arrive at the start point, the guild automatically takes my goods without paying me and tells me to go back for the rest, and when I don't have the rest of the units or money to buy them, this cancels the mission and I lose everything. It's my first night of game play, and I've lost everything I've worked for over 6 or 7 hours. If I can't complete the mission, I should at least be reimbursed for the units taken by the guild, or retain the units to make what every trade deal I can. If that's the pit falls of this game, being ripped off by the AI - as existing players indicate it is - then it's a game not worth continuing with.

You have the beginnings of a good game, and I hope that this is a bug.

Although I do believe that the lack of payment at the end *is* a bug. C.f. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/8837

By the way, if you notice something that you think may be a bug, please check the Bugs board first, and post it there if no one else has reported it.

Almost as much of a golden rule as NOT DOUBLE POSTING! *ahem*

Its a pretty good idea to only do the retrievals until its all fixed.

Also, you -never- get paid for partial deliveries, only for complete and final ones.

For me the primary frustration is that the interface is ambiguous enough, and there isn't a way too do enough research, that by the time you take the job you're already hooped. Honestly, trying out a trial of the game and given the fact that these basic missions were purported to help a new player learn the game, I made the assumption that it would be very hard to fail at it. In later game play, I can understand the AI being a little more ruthless. However, on the first precurement run in a 'training mission' to ask for an absolutely unaffordable amount of material, not be clear as to the parameters of the mission and have no failsafe to let a player stop the mission without loss of everything he has put into it seems a little - well - underthought.

A simple dialogue box that states "You do not have all of the required goods you were sent for. You will not be paid until you have delivered them all to this station. Are you sure you want to drop these off?" <yes, I will drop them off> <no, I'll keep them for now> would give the player a chance. Then he could re-sell the units at a loss or make his own deal for a profit. Yet the station just takes the goods out of your ship without giving the player a chance to make the actual delivery and then informs the player he needs more material and doesn't make a partial payment.

On a further note - having read the other thread that was posted about the non-payment in rertreivals - the AI states unequivicollay - "Get this stuff and you will be reimbursed." I work in a profession where people are reibursed for expenses all the time. Reimbursment means replacing the actual cost that was paid out by the original agent. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but if that's what the mission says, it should give you back all the money you've paid - Especially for a Training Mission!

Now, if the procurement said, we'll give you 19k for 19 boxed of stuff, and stuff all costs 2k and there's an abort button, then it's your own look out, but that's not what is stated.

a few points.

1. the trading guild missions are not training missions. Those are the trade missions througout the game at this point.

I have suggested in another thread that the trade guild missions be broken up further, and only short range delivery and retrieve missions be made availible at low level, primarily to prevent exactly what happened to you.

2. All the procurement missions I have seen pay quite a bit more than the purchase value of the cargo, the wording might need changed, but the reward is correct.

I think the current bug in the procurement mission was created accidently when the gross over payment bug in the mission was reported as an exploit. I'm sure that it will be set to the proper level with the next update (monday evening/tuesday morning)

Spellcast: The procurement missions most certainly do -not- pay full value. The most recent one I did paid 28000cr for 106cu of cargo, which sold for 710cr apiece. So I shelled out 75260 credits and only was repaid 28000 credits. Thankfully, I'm smart so I made up most of the difference carrying trade goods on the side, but most people I know just /explode at the end of their journey (morons, eh?) or don't carry return cargo, so end up losing bundles of money. I still end up losing about 10000cr for each procurement mission I do.

hmmmm, I wonder if the cash reward is somehow based on trade level, because i did about 10 procure missions last night and every one of them gave me the value of the cargo + approximately 60% of the value of the same mission under the "retrieve" tab.

for example a "procure 51 ion cores" (yea, thats a lot of ion cores) paid me enough to buy the cores and yielded a nice ~20,000 credit profit. The retrieve version of the same mission offered to pay me 32,000 credits for collecting 51 ion cores.

Tao Xian: Yes, you're right. I wouldn't call it a bug, but it WAS an oversight in the design. :) The new version of the mission will reimburse you as you drop crates off (in addition to fixing the legitimate bug where it doesn't reimburse you at all!)