What about Barges?

[Redline.Inc]

Everyone is upset about some stuff on the upcoming update but truth be told that we dont have a real patch in years...
Id say give the Team a chance... and stop abusing the toys they give us hehe

I'm in full agreement, but also hoping that those of us who use the Barge as intended don't end up paying for the sins of the abusers.
I ran ore in my Barge one single time to see what all the fuss was about and made nearly enough to buy a battleship in that one run alone.

Well, ores will change big time in this patch, (because they must) so that problem fixes itself.

POB refineries look to be able to make actually doing base supplying a lucrative trading endeavor, which could finally fix 3 things simultaneously.

[*] Misuse of Barges
[*] The recurring Nightmare of POB maintenance
[*] Lack of a realistic economic model

If POB refineries succeed in making the provision of base supplies a dynamic supply and demand model, IMO the mod will be greatly enhanced and made much more realistic. A society that survived being dropped into a new universe to start over again would have done so by scraping the necessary materials together from the clouds and fields around them. This would be how they continue to survive and thrive.
Hopefully, this will make trading the engine that drives successful POB businesses, and make trading work an important necessity that requires attending to, rather than leaving them to struggle unassisted under a ridiculous regime where their cargo is lost because pirates counterlog and destroy convoys with capships at will and without consequence.
Maybe it will make a difference when POB businesses have to deal with higher materials prices due to supply shortages because of piracy.

From what I've seen so far, this patch will move Disco closer to a space Sim rather than tragically continuing it's recent movement ever closer to being just another simple pvp server with capships, and little other reason to participate.