There has been some commentary on the boards recently about the speed that cargo missions generate reputation gain. I personally feel that the time it takes to gain faction standing is fine at the moment, but it could be made more understandable.

To do this i propose changing the way the cargo missions are handled in the stations by;

Giving each station a list of missions (10? 15? 20? maybe varied by station depending on the type of station?) that are availible at that station. The same list would be availible for everyone. the missions would be generated randomly using the same mission creation setup we have now, with the following changes.

Each mission would have a 30 minute "duration" after 30 minutes if a mission hasn't been taken, it dissapears and another mission is generated in its place.

Each time a player takes a mission, a new mission is generated by the server for that station.

ALL missions would have the same reputation gain, these are really just basic hauling jobs, theres nothing flashy or specatacular about them.

Shorter missions would have smaller cash and trade Xp gains, Longer missions would have larger cash and trade Xp gains.

Players would then be able to choose a mission from the list that suited what they were trying to do.

It might be nice to have rep gains based on distance travelled, amount and value of cargo carried, and time taken for the trip.

For instance, a single system from one station to another with 5 crates of Aquean ore has a lower base gain than a trip that crosses four systems (say Sedina to Initros) with 20 crates of Xithricite ore. If a player takes two hours to take the Sedina trip, it'll give a lower rep gain than if they only take a minute and a half for the Aquean trip, but if they make the Sedina to Initros trip in 5 minutes, they'll get a much higher reputation gain.

maybe crippled, but while I can see cash and Xp based on distance, reputation is less so.
For example, if you work as an independent truck driver and take a job for a company

You can do one of the following two jobs
A- New York to Los Angeles
B- New York to Washington DC.

While they are going to have to pay you more to do job A, as far as their records are concerned (which would be your reputation with that company), you have done 1 job for them. How far you went probably doesnt matter much.

Possibly reputation gain could increase a little bit as a job got closer to the 30 minute timeout, to represent you "helping them out of a jam" but distance and time is no real measure of how much your standing with a company changes.

it could however increase based on mission severity, ie a "transport this unique datapad" is only given to higher considered players, and gives more standing increase than normal "freight this bulk cargo" mission.

however, it shouldn't be nearly as much as double, just a bit more.