At Smitten's request, I've copied the following from the N3 discussion thread to it's own thread. Hopefully we can discuss this aspect of CTC here.

Begin original reply:
CTC is fundamentaly imbalanced. The itani convoy route is more secure due to both the Edras I-2 station and the dearth of player traffic in Pelatus/Bractus in comparison to Latos/Sedina. Also the convoy speeds at the end of the week favor itani as the valkyrie is superior at interception compared to the serco options (hornet/hog/atlas-x).
Solution: add serco station at Ukari A-10, remove Azek/Latos wormhole, move Levi (along with primary focus of hive skirmish) to Odia, add stations to Bractus and Pelatus, reduce ctc convoy end of week speeds and add more guard bots.
End original reply.

I realize the solution I present is an extreme one and impractical due to the amount of dev work required. Perhaps a simpler (more easily implemented) solution would be to move the itani convoy starting point to a station in Odia. The extra unprotected step in the itani route would help to balance out the effects of the Azek/Latos wormhole, number of stations/missions along route (hence player interest in area), and equipment superiority issues.

Or replace CtC (which is already planned I believe)?

WRONG!!!!

THE SERCO ROUTE IS EASIER!!!!

the itani route is longer and must go through more pirates than the serco

also, the serco voys have been coming out of wormholes within 100m of being able to jump out

But players pose a higher threat than NPCs.

But I'm with slime, CtC should be replaced...

Currently itani and serco voys both go through one area of npc pirates which do not attack them - granted there are spill over unrats in adjacent systems but they don't attack the voys either. Only npc threat to voys is storms [and possibly convoys of the opposing side]. Itani voys also come out close of wormholes close to jump points - extremely hard to kill at that point.

The question of replacement for ctc is how long? Like faction pos long? Economy long? Smitten's idea and the additions to it would fill in the gap nicely if the ctc replacement is awhile off yet. I'm simply suggesting, that if there are changes made to make ctc more attractive and rewarding in the meantime, that a serious look be given as to the balance of ctc and if there is a simple 'quick-fix', that it be applied along with any other changes.

I think the convoys should start at a variety of stations from bractus to sedina, maybe they could even pass each other occasionally :)

Lets see:

Serco convoy: sedina 1 jump, latos, 1 jump, ukari 1 jump, serco space

Itani convoy: bractus 1 jump, pelatus 1 jump, edras 1 jump= itani station at wh.

Basically the only difference is that Itani station in Edras but... Pelatus and Edras jumps take very long so distance is kinda the same.

If you move Itani convoy to odia, it will be one more jump for it and then Serco will have shorter route but then the only fair option would be to position a new Itani station at Edras/Pelatus wh so both convoys have the same number of jumps before they enter nation space.

I think it should be a bit more combative than it currently is.

What I would like to see is instead of one convoy for each team, a neutral(unrat)convoy that must be captured by either side in order to make any gains. This convoy could spawn randomly at either Edras or Helios, and travel to the other. Either team must capture this convoys cargo in order to make any gains. Leaving it alone accomplishes nothing.

Or perhaps the cargo is contained within a hive queen, somewhere in UIT space, and has to be found, hunted, and then hauled to the appropriate nation station. The chat channels could alter the info updates to something like "Xith Hive Queen located in Nyrus". It would be up to the individual nations forces to find, kill, and retrieve the cargo.

In this way the nations would be competing for the same resource, rather than both teams camping the other teams convoys known route.

That sounds great!

However, it would be interesting if, later on, such convoys could be player-driven.
E.g.: Players with exceptional mining skills would mine the xith, but the important point would not be just the skill level... something else would have to be defined to determine skill, but since I am not skilled at mining, I have no idea how to go about this. Perhaps some roid farmers would like to speak up?

Players skilled at running blockades would pick it up and race with it through the fire of NPC and PC pirate or naval forces, delivering the special ore to <destination>, and it doesn't always have to be xith, either, does it?

And the hopefully-then-in-place crating system would allow the more skilled engineers to produce special weaponry for the skilled warriors to use in the ever-raging war on the Big Bad Enemy.

Now we just have to wait...

I wouldn't worry about CtC. It will be replaced like Slime said when the devs are finished giving us ribbons.

Will the devs give a CTC ribbon before (or at the time when) they retire / replace the CTC?
Considering the amount of time that goes into waiting in ambush for the CTC, and delivering it.