Sorry about all the ads. ops:

 

lol.. Shoot Tony for as much of an ahole as you can be you sure are a funny guy

Glad Im on your good side btw haha

 

mults=multiples?

 

Yes. Mults are alias usernames, generally used to troll or flame. You see them a lot on here every once in a while. They generally tend to pack together. The actual term "mult" was coined on another message board I used to frequent. Many boards simply call them "multis", including the Trukz board. I prefer Mult over Multis.

 

Disregarded!!

oh sorry wrong thread... :lol:

 

Trukz Contract System – Spring 2008
By the Trukz Development Team

Introduction: Cause, Goals

The biggest problem in designing a new contract system was how to prevent the contract amounts from being lowered to nothing. We read and considered many of the suggestions from the forums. These ideas included a multi- or single-bid silent auction, delayed-expiration auctions that add thirty seconds to one minute for another company to bid lower, limiting how much lower a company can bid below the current bid, and plenty more.
Though all of these ideas were considered and panned out to some extent, none of them did enough to prevent the bids from going too low and many of them actually promoted the issue. Silent bids encourage companies to bid very low the first time to make sure they get the contract, delayed-expiration auctions really drive prices down as companies go back and forth bidding lower, and limiting how much lower a company can bid will simply make the price take longer to go lower but won’t stop it from happening.

After thinking a lot about the system we came to the thought that most of the fun of the game wasn’t in getting contracts, but being a part of a company that is running a contract. At that point, we started thinking about what were the best ways to deliver contracts to companies, more so than fixing the challenges of a contract bidding system. Getting the contracts currently is only fun (read: aggravating) to the few contract managers of the game. Actually running the contracts is what is fun to the community as a whole. We decided that we wanted to create more of this fun and not just fix the contract bidding system. At the same time, we didn’t want to just provide a contract to every company on demand because that wasn’t a very good simulation.

We ask everyone to consider the following system that we have come up with keeping in mind that this system is designed to make the contract system more fun for everyone even though it does indeed take away some of the challenges that were enjoyed by a few in actually winning the contracts. We did try to add some of those challenges back into this system, just related to this new concept. (Ex: The lengths of contracts will now fluctuate, so you have to factor in the amount of time you have to complete it.)

Company Contract Rating System
o Companies will have a contract rating that controls what contracts they can bid on. Companies can only bid on contracts which have the same rating as their company contract rating or one level below. (Example: If a company’s rating is 2.4 then a company can only bid on contracts that are rated Level 2, or Level 1, not any lower or higher.) This rating simulates companies having to have a certain reputation for success before suppliers will contract them with larger contracts. It also simulates the fact that larger companies will not go after small contracts that aren’t worth their time. There is also a subsystem of this that is related to a company’s size; this is discussed later.
§ A company’s contract rating will start at 0 and will be adjusted every time a contract is completed or failed.
· The rating will increase by .2 with every successful contract
· The rating will decrease with every failed contract based on the percentage of the contract completed:
76% or more completed = -.2 penalty
51% - 75% completed = -.3 penalty
26% - 50% completed = -.4 penalty
11% - 25% completed = -.5 penalty
0% - 10% completed = -.6 penalty
· The rating will not increase to the next whole number if the company does not have the proper size to move to the next level. (If this was not done, a company’s contract rating would outgrow what the company is capable of completing. It would force companies to continue to grow in size in order to grow in contract rating. This isn’t fair to the companies that want to stay smaller in size but continue to make money and enjoy the fun of contracts.) Instead, a bonus system will come into effect (see below).
· Level active driver requirements:
o Level 0 = 15 Active Drivers
o Level 1 = 15 Active Drivers
o Level 2 = 20 Active Drivers
o Level 3 = 26 Active Drivers
o Level 4 = 34 Active Drivers
o Level 5 = 40 Active Drivers
o Level 6 = 47 Active Drivers
o Level 7 = 53 Active Drivers
o Level 8 = 60 Active Drivers
o Level 9 = 67 Active Drivers
o Level 10 = 74 Active Drivers
o Level 11 = 80 Active Drivers
o Level 12 = 87 Active Drivers
§ Not having a permanently-supplied cargo is still grounds for being penalized. You have to do research to see where and how the cargo is available. Note that a bonus is being added for contracts that are for a non-permanently-supplied cargo. If a supply exists, but is closer than the 300 mile limit then that supply will not be viewed as existing when it comes to determining the bonus.
§ If a company’s rating goes negative, the company will not be able to bid on contracts until its rating reaches 0 again. Companies with a negative rating will gain .1 every day until they are back to 0.

Contract Creation System
o The number of contracts created per day will be based on a number of factors. These include:
§ The number of contract-eligible companies in each continent in each level. There will not be a contract for every company. Only 40% of needed contracts will be created at each level in each continent.
· The 40% number is what we are going to start with, but if we see an over abundance of contracts, we will lower this percentage. This will be an easy adjustment that we can play with until we get it correct.
§ Companies that are already working two contracts will not be factored in to this calculation.
§ Code will be added to make sure a level with only 1 company has 1 contract. This will create an obvious advantage for early-moving companies, but will eventually balance out. This code will prevent 0 contracts being created when only 1 company is in a level. This would hinder the growth of the system. Obviously 40% of 1 rounded is 0.
§ Another number will be randomized to allow the calculated number to fluctuate to be up to 20% fewer available contracts or up to 20% more available contracts. This will simulate market fluctuation. It will be done using a random number between 0 & 40 with 0 equaling -20, 20 equaling 0, 40 equaling 20, etc.
§ Example: There are 10 level 2 companies in US that are contract-eligible. 40% of that number would mean 4 contracts are going to be created at that level in US. The fluctuation random number ends up being 6. This would then subtract 14% of those contracts (.56) which rounded equals 1 contract. That leaves 3 contracts for that continent, that level.
o Once the number of contracts are determined, a price range, total weight, destination, and cargo type will be randomly given to the contract between the following ranges:
§ Level 0 = {$0.94 - $1.02} [200-600 tons] (approx. 10-30 loads)
§ Level 1 = {$1.03 - $1.11} [600-1000 tons] (approx. 30-50 loads)
§ Level 2 = {$1.12 - $1.20} [1000-1400 tons] (approx. 50-70 loads)
§ Level 3 = {$1.21 - $1.29} [1400-1800 tons] (approx. 70-90 loads)
§ Level 4 = {$1.30 - $1.38} [1800-2200 tons] (approx. 90-110 loads)
§ Level 5 = {$1.39 - $1.47} [2200-2600 tons] (approx. 110-130 loads)
§ Level 6 = {$1.48 - $1.56} [2600-3000 tons] (approx. 130-150 loads)
§ Level 7 = {$1.57 - $1.65} [3000-3400 tons] (approx. 150-170 loads)
§ Level 8 = {$1.66 - $1.74} [3400-3800 tons] (approx. 170-190 loads)
§ Level 9 = {$1.75 - $1.83} [3800-4200 tons] (approx. 190-210 loads)
§ Level 10 = {$1.84 - $1.92} [4200-4600 tons] (approx. 210-230 loads)
§ Level 11 = {$1.93 - $2.01} [4600-5000 tons] (approx. 230-250 loads)
§ Level 12 = {$2.02 - $2.10} [5000-5400 tons] (approx. 250-270 loads)
o Next the company pay and penalty amounts will be calculated.
§ Company reward is 2.5 times the tons hauled.
§ Company penalty is 15 times the tons hauled.
§ A 20% reward bonus will be applied to contracts that are supplying a cargo that doesn’t have a permanent supplier.
o All contracts will continue to be processed at midnight central every day. There will be no need to stay up and bid at the last minute because of the new bidding system.

Level Bonus System
o Because this system design requires that a company grow in size, which some companies don’t want to do, in order to increase the amount of money these companies can make on a contract, we will build in a bonus system at each level. Once a company’s level has reached the max in that level but does not have enough active drivers to move to the next contract level, they will begin to increase their bonus in that level. This will simulate a company gaining a great reputation with loads of the particular levels size. Suppliers would be willing to pay the company more to handle their loads even though it isn’t a larger company.
§ For each bonus level a company gains at a contract level, its base rate will be increased by $.01.
§ The max bonus a company can gain at a level is +16. This is the equivalent of gaining about two more contract levels. If a company wishes to make more money on contracts, it will have to grow in size as companies do in real life in order to make more money.
§ The bonus will increase by 1 with every successful contract once a company has reached the basic rating limit for its level.
§ Since the bonus reflects exemplary performance, not completing a contract will impact the bonus faster than the company’s contract rating. The bonus will decrease by the following level based on percentage of contract completed. Once the bonus is equal to 0, then the company’s contract rating will be impacted.
76% or higher completed = -2 penalty
51% - 75% completed = -4 penalty
26% - 50% completed = -6 penalty
11% - 25% completed = -8 penalty
0% - 10% completed = -10 penalty
§ In the event that a company grows in size and moves to the next level after building up a bonus in the previous level, its bonus level from the previous level will be converted at a rate of .1 contract level for each 4 bonus points, rounded down.
§ If a company loses members and falls below the minimum members of its current level then it will only be able to bid on the contracts of the new qualifying level. It will immediately begin collecting bonus in the new level and will not be able to build on its overall contract rating until the company gains back members.
§ A company’s contract level / status will be determined at midnight of that day and they will be locked into that status (active member count, etc) until contract level / status is recalculated the next day. Gaining members during the day will not change which contracts that company can bid on.

Bidding System
o A company can only bid on contracts of its current contract level based on the Company Contract Rating System.
o A company must exist for two weeks before it can begin bidding on contracts. This simulates companies having to appear stable to the supplier before they will hire them.
o A company must have at least 15 members before it can begin bidding on contracts. Again, this helps simulate stability through size.
o No company can be working more than 2 contracts in each continent at the same time no matter what size the company is. At this point in the game, this rule would mean that each company can have 4 contracts, 2 for US, and 2 for Europe at one time. If we add another continent, then this number would of course grow to 6. etc.
o A company must have at least 1 terminal in a continent to be eligible to bid on contracts in that continent.
o Bidding can be done at any point during the day. Simply clicking “bid” will throw a company into the drawing for the contract.
o A company can cancel a bid at any point before midnight and bid on a different contract if they start to think that the current contract is becoming to competitive, that they can’t complete once they thought about it, it was an accident, etc.
o The current number of bids on the contract will be shown to assist in bidding. Which companies have bid on the contract will not be shown.
o A company can bid on up to two contracts a day in each continent, again recognizing that a max of 2 active contracts in each continent rule still applies. You will not see bid options in that continent if you already have two active contracts.
o At midnight, one company will be randomly picked from the group of companies that have bid on the contract. That company will be awarded the contract at the rate determine during the contract creation process (plus any bonus rating increase, if applicable).
o Companies will have a preference number. A company that does not get a contract it has bid on will have its preference number incremented by 1. Each time it doesn’t win a contract, the number will continue to increment. Any time it bids on a contract it will be thrown into the pot the number of times of their current preference number. Once it receives a contract, its number will return to 1. This gives all companies a chance to win, but companies that haven’t won in a while after multiple attempts will have a greater chance of winning the contract than companies who have recently won a contract.

 

Ummmm, what.....? I think I fell asleep about right here: From what I read before I fell asleep, does this mean you now have to have a college degree to bid on contracts and be a contract manager for your company? 8)

 

Yes. That eliminates about 99% of their users.

 

Nope, it means that this is nothing more than a lottery. You can only bid on the contracts at your Comapny Level. All Companys at that level can submit a "bid". You either bid or don't bid. Price is detrmined by the game. A random company name is drawn and awarded the contract.

The only thing a contract manager has to do now is determine if there is a permanent supplier, miles, and if your drivers can complete it on time.

 

Well that sucks. Two things to improve the old one would have been to make the closing time for bids at say 8 pm EST instead of 1 am EST and to make the bid increments at $.02-$.05 per bid. That would of stopped someone from straight up lowballing everyone with a price so low it was below a basement price, it was a subterranian price.