Passenger Carrier is a career that involves transporting passengers to destinations for a price. Passenger contracts are functionally similar to Mission Board contracts. Ships that are equipped with Passenger Cabins may accept VIP or bulk passenger contracts at Passenger Lounges found at various Starports, Outposts, and Surface Ports. Local minor factions list the passenger contracts they have available, and each contract provides all the passengers' terms and conditions.
Contract types[]
VIP contracts[]
VIP passenger icon
VIP contracts are high-paying, high-risk, round-trip transport contracts offered by individual VIPs and their retinues. Transporting VIPs usually involves taking them on a voyage to one or more destinations for activities such as sightseeing or data collection, and then returning them to same station where they were picked up. Sightseeing and long-distance VIP passenger contracts contribute to a pilot's Explorer rank, while short-distance contracts contribute to Trader rank. All VIP contracts generally have a greater effect on minor faction Reputation than on Influence.
VIP passengers will frequently request destinations hundreds or thousands of light-years away, may be high-profile individuals such as celebrities and criminals who will attract unwanted attention from assassins and bounty hunters, and may also make extra demands during the journey. Passenger satisfaction is crucial to successful completion of VIP contracts. Unhappy VIPs may eject themselves from the ship, leaving the pilot with a failed contract. The VIPs' traits are listed in their contracts, and their satisfaction level may be monitored during a voyage by checking the Transactions tab on the left HUD panel.
VIPs always occupy an entire cabin no matter the size of their group, and will not share that cabin with any other passenger groups. Some VIP contracts may request Luxury or B-rated cabins, which can only be installed on the Beluga Liner, Dolphin, and Orca.
Targeting and scanning the point-of-interest, such as a Tourist Beacon, at the destination will fulfill the contract's primary objective. Payment can be collected from the Passenger Lounge upon a successful return to the station.
Bulk contracts (non-VIP)[]
Non-VIP passenger icon
Bulk contracts are low-paying, low-risk, one-way transport contracts offered by anonymous groups of passengers such as tourists, business workers, refugees, and even militant rebels. All bulk passenger contracts contribute to a pilot's Trader rank. All bulk contracts generally have a greater effect on minor faction Influence than on Reputation.
All Passenger Cabin classes can be used for bulk contracts. Bulk passengers occupy individual seats or berths within their assigned cabins, and groups can be split across multiple cabins of the same class. In essence, bulk passengers are loaded in a similar manner to cargo, and total seating capacity is used instead of the total number of cabin modules. Bulk passengers are also less prone to making extra demands or ejecting if their satisfaction level falls. Payment can be collected from the Passenger Lounge at the destination station.
Sightseeing tours[]
The Cruise Director: a guide to (short range) Passenger Sightseeing Tours. This guide is courtesy of syrstorm.
Introduction/Summary[]
Tunning passengers around on short range sightseeing tours is extremely profitable (I average 6-10 Million per hour), and also quite a bit more fun (to me) than running cargo loops as a trader. It uses similar skillsets to trading (maximizing efficiency in travel, star scooping, etc), but with more variety since the travel itinerary is randomly generated on each trip.
Our goal will be to efficiently run “short range sight seeing tours” – these are the passenger runs that hit 3-4 systems, each within 50-150 light years from each other. I don’t bother with the one way taxi services (I want to end up back where I started, and they don’t generate as much money) and I don’t want to do the long range tours (farther than 1,000 light years – takes too long and you have to self-navigate). I can complete one of these tours in about an hour (a little less for some, a little more for others) – it makes a nice lunchtime activity, really.
Your Ship[]
Let’s start with the ship and how to build it out for this activity.
Important elements to your ship:
- Passenger Cabin - By far the most important. You’ll want to be able to carry at least 8 passengers - get the nicest cabin you can that will fit that many passengers. The most lucrative contracts require First Class or (I haven’t seen many) Luxury accommodations. I use the 12 capacity First Class cabin (6F) and it works for almost any clients.
- FSD – the longest range you can possibly get. Well worth the effort to Engineer this! Fewer jumps = faster trips!
- Fuel Scoop – After FSD, this determines the speed of your trip. Your time between jumps won’t be determined by how fast your FSD becomes ready, it’s how fast can you refill your fuel tank.
Nice, but not critical:
- System Scanner – you’re going to go through a lot of systems. Scan ‘em for a few extra credits and some explorer ranks!
- Extra Fuel Tanks – so you don’t have to stress out if you haven’t hit a scoopable star in a few jumps.
- Cargo Rack – You actually need a small cargo rack (4 is plenty) to finish some of these jobs, because many will give you a small amount of cargo as part of the reward.
- Weapons and Shields – I don’t put much effort/credits into these, but don’t skip them, either. Some of your passengers will be wanted, and you can catch some heat... and I just don’t like being defenseless. I think the Asp Explorer is perhaps the perfect ship for this activity and can build it out exactly the way I want it for 25 Million (less than 12 if you’re okay using B quality FSD, Scoops, Scanners, and Shields).
My ship[]
For a much cheaper ship (less than 4million), I’d use the Type 6. You’ll lose out on First Class passengers, but it does everything else just as well.
Type-6 Cruise Ship
Finding Passengers[]
Your goal is to find a simple trip for a good price. You’ll want to have a good reputation in the system you’re in, and ideally be a boom system with a lot of people and a good economy. Others have written better guides to maxing out mission and passenger opportunities, but those are the basics. Some other things that can help:
- Switching from Solo to Open or back.
- Using a system with multiple nearby stations so you can check several places quickly.
What you're looking for is a “Sightseeing Adventure” (or the similar) with 3-4 stops, all within about 100-150 ly. If you’re in a good station, there should be 2-4 possibilities from among the 12-15 available passenger jobs. I don’t bother with anything under 4 Million credits, and I’ve done a 1 hour run that paid over 15 million (that was definitely the exception – most of the runs I do are in the 6-7 MM range). I am definitely NOT doing any of the long range (farther than 1,000 LY) runs. They’re too slow.
As for the details on the particular passengers... to be honest, I don’t pay much attention. You’ll want to note if they are going to be “illegal cargo” or cause extra interdiction attempts, but I don’t spend too long in most systems to get tracked down, so it’s usually not much trouble. I also ignore all “special requests”...
The Tour[]
Hooray! You have passengers and they have an itinerary of 3 to 4 stops. You’ll want to get them to those spots as fast as possible to finish your run. The basic steps are these:
- 1.Open your nav panel, hop to transactions tab, open the Passenger Job window.
- 2.Select “Open Galaxy Map”. It will automatically select the target system. Lock in the multijump route.
- 3.Fly to the target system. Fuel scoop along the way to keep fuel topped off.
- 4.When you arrive in the target system, go back to the Job description to see where you’re going within the system.
- 5.Fly to the target (usually a beacon). Drop out of warp. Scan the target. One leg of the journey is complete!
- 6.Go back to #1 to figure out your next goal. Repeat until all steps complete, then return to original station.
Star Travel – to the System[]
Fortunately, it’s easy to quickly get a multi-jump route to your target system. Just open the Nav panel, slide to Transactions tab, and open the Passenger Job. Select “Open Galaxy Map” from here, and the target system will be pre-selected for you (Thanks, ED!). Select multi-jump route, and you’re good to go.
As you’re traveling to the target system for each leg of your journey, you’ll need to fuel scoop as you go. We don’t want to waste time finding a station to stop at to refuel, so we fuel scoop back to full each time we can. Because fuel scooping speed is important, we’ve strapped an enormous scoop to our ship so we should be able to fill the tank very quickly even if it’s low. Others have written better guides to fuel scooping, so I won’t go into that here, but just know that the pattern is: 1) Arrive in new system 2) Arc around the star to scoop as much fuel as possible before you need to straighten out to head to the next system 3) FSD to the next system.
[]
As soon as you arrive in your target system, start flying away from the star and open the Navigation Panel. On the Navigation tab, scroll down until you see a “Globe Icon” by one of the entries – that’s the closest planet to where you’re headed. Select that planet as your destination and start heading there. Go back to your Job Window (Nav panel, Transactions tab) and scroll down to find out the exact object you’re supposed to scan. This is typically a “tourist beacon” or something similar.
When you’re within 1000 Ls of the target planet (or if you started that close) your target beacon should now be visible in the Nav Panel – select it as your Target Lock. Fly to your beacon (it’s usually in orbit around the closest planet) and then drop out of hypercruise.
The instant you come out of hypercruise, set engines to full stop and target the beacon. After a few seconds of scanning... congrats! That’s one leg of the cruise!
You should now be able to jump back to the Job window (Nav Panel, transactions tab) to Open the Galaxy Map, and once again the next target system of the journey should be pre-selected for you. Get the multi-jump route, and you’re back to flying!
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Reward.
Efficiency Tips[]
- 4 pips to ENG for top acceleration and speed.
- I haven’t found a special request that’s worth going off-track for. YMMV.
- Engineer max range for your FSD – it really is a massive efficiency upgrade (longer jumps = fewer jumps = faster trip).
- Okay, I lied. Some fuel scooping thoughts... Being an efficient cruise director is all about efficiently scooping fuel. Whenever you’re skimming a scoopable star, you want to get to the “sweet spot” for scooping (as much fuel/sec as possible without catching a lot of heat) ASAP, then adjust your angle and speed so that your tank fills right when you get to the far side of the star and are ready to spin up your FSD again. If you went into your last jump with a full tank, you can probably skim the current star at full speed. If you’ve hit 3-4 unskimmable stars in a row, you’ll want to throttle down to the blue or even below that. With a little practice, this will become second nature and doing it to maximum efficiency is a fun mini-game imo. It’s definitely okay to jump to the next system at less than 100% full tanks, but try to get close each time. If you have spare fuel tanks, then you have more wiggle room to jump without completely filling up each time. Generally, don’t start your FSD with your fuel scoop out – it can crank up your heat quickly, but there’s some leeway if you haven’t built up a lot of heat yet and you’re not too close.
Enjoy your career as a cruise director!
Notes[]
- Passenger missions were added in the Elite Dangerous: Horizons The Guardians (2.2) update.[1]
Videos[]
Gallery[]
References[]
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