The problem of POB destruction is connected to a number of things which are worth pulling into the spotlight again.
1. Griefing. This happens, and will always happen. The problem is how to deal with it. There are times when admins should intervene, but also times when griefing is a reaction to something worse than the reaction to it. Admins cant always know both signs of the coin. A good was to reduce people griefing each other is to change mechanics so players can't harm/damage each other too much. Destroying someone's base is and extreme way of harming their game play, which shouldn't be allowed imo. Building a POB to ruin someone's hunting ground is also a way to ruin their game and unbalancing the mod in a bad way. Remember that without antagonists the game would be extremely boring. There ARE ways to stop both, without removing POBs entirely (read below). There are also more ways to reduce griefing which is independent of POBs, like creating safe zones which cant be reach by revenge-squads.
2. Rivalry. That will also always happen. It's one of the main driving forces in a multiplayer game, the challenge is to channel it in a positive and not a negative way. Again, the way to stop it from becoming unhealthy is to reduce the negative impact one group of players can have on another, which can be achieved through rules as well as mechanics. They key is to NEVER let one group "win" by destroying the other entirely (like a POB destruction), and to never let one group always win and the other always or permanently lose, but to let each score wins in their own way (for example different tactics used for different skill levels or numbers).
3. Wrong advertising priorities of the mod. The mod mainly advertises with three things: Gallia, Cap ships, POBs. Gallia is a failed concept. Many people who play here don't want others to fly caps for various reasons, and there are also various reasons why people will feel disappointed once they have a cap. POBs are similar in that respect, except people sink even more efforts into them, and they can be destroyed, which will give more than disappointment. If people have focused on Gallia, Caps, and POBs when starting to play here, only to find that all 3 are disappointments, most of them will leave before discovering the better aspects of the mod (like making friends other than the ones they traded with, developing role play characters and stories, and getting ambitions other than those achieved through grinding for a cap or POB or exploring empty new systems which doesn't give you better gear anymore like in Vanilla because of equipment RP restrictions). Instead of setting new people's sights on those 3 things, they should be set on making friends and joining factions. And that is NOT done by having arrogant and elitist "official factions" push them around and stay closed to them because they only create problems, but by motivating factions to grow in numbers and letting new people live out their ideas.
Here a few ideas to change POB game mechanics:
Don't make every POB the standard area-interdicting ore-storing supertech-producing asset that they can be now. Different types of bases for different kinds of applications in different places.
For example, make POBs different annexes for existing bases:
-A "hangar for rent" type pseudo-base with nothing but a small cargo storage so people can store things like code name guns or change gear between ships, and without a 3D model (maybe dock with an existing base using a code similar to docking modules). All people do is pay a (relatively steep) rent per week/month to keep their storage.
-A "storage annex" to an existing base, or near existing bases, that is nothing but cargo storage without supertech factories.
-A "Factory" type annex that can be built near ship yards. Docking modules should be enabled for every faction, while special tech like jump drives for only certain factions for which it make sense IRP.
-"Defense modules" that can be built near existing station to make them safe areas (for example make people safe from nomads near FP 11, and also enforce the "nofire zones" by adding people to hostile lists)
All of those should be indestructible by players, but require enough maintenance so people will only "feed" them if they are really interested in them. Also, the primary build cost should be small relatively to the maintenance cost, so people aren't slaves to what they built, but do feed and create trade when they are still interested in what the base does.
For bases built far away from other bases, I guess they could be SRPed, but they should still be indestructible.
Those are just a few ideas which can be refined, of course.
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