Hauling Passengers Instead of Cargo: Explorer Missions

The tap cafes at the station are full of drunken commanders lamenting their bad fortunes in haulage. I could have joined them and wallowed in self pity, but those of us without the bad drinking habits have transitioned to passenger hauling to keep paying our bills.

I accepted a contract paying $5.7 million to take a quiet, sober-looking explorer eleven hundred light years to see the rings of a binary system. I outfitted a better fuel scoop than I had previously - a Class 5 C-Rated. It tops off my tank in seconds between jumps.

I plotted my route using scoop-able stars, and it came in at fifty jumps. Since my Asp currently jumps twenty-nine light years, it took me one hour to make all the jumps to the binary system. I scanned each system as I jumped in order grab cartographic readings to sell later. My passenger then sent me a message (I guess he did not feel like walking the twenty feet from his cabin to the cockpit) with the system co-ordinates he wanted to see. I flew to the co-ordinates indicated on the system map and scanned the target beacon to get the requested data for my passenger. He then messaged me that he was ready to return to ITO orbital.

I did the hour return trip. Another fifty mind-numbing system jumps. Once we docked, the passenger transferred funds to my account and left without another word. I then sold my cartographic readings.

Totals for the trip:
Light years: 1,100
Jumps: 101
Time: 2 hrs 15 min
Mission pay: $5,700,000
Cartographic data: $919,000

A total pay day of $6,619,000

A good pay day for a few hours work? Yes.

A fun way to live my life? Absolutely not.

With cargo hauling I got to jump into systems and see a variety of stations and planets. A visual feast. With long range passenger hauling you get to jump over and over and over. Suns and hyperspace tunnels are all you see. Jump, scan system, scoop fuel, hit the jump drive. Repeat. A real mind-nerfing experience, in spite of the scenic destination.

I have since transitioned to shorter-range passenger hauling. Not as lucrative, but faster turn around. I will report back on my results there after getting a few more missions under my belt.