What about Barges?

[Antonio]

When I came back over 2 months ago, the last thing I expected was to see the Barge being the ultimate money-printing machine it was never intended to be. The trade lane nerf is primarily because of balance. No matter how much the Barge costs, it having the option to make 2x more money than a 5ker in the same amount of time presents an issue for the balance of the economy. Yeah, it sucks if you were a nice obedient Barge enjoyer who did not abuse its overpowered state, but the same can't be said about everyone else. A *lot* of Barges powertraded ore this patch, and got dirty rich off of it.

Balance has to be done according to a ship's maximum potential, regardless of how many people utilize that potential and regardless of the area it is causing an issue in (economy balance, pvp balance, etc.). It happens in literally every online video game ever. To give an analogy: it only takes a few people to abuse a broken ship, like the release OSC Shuttle, in order for it to get a nerf. "Oh but I liked my OSC Shuttle and didn't abuse it for PvP, it's unfair!" - it doesn't matter, when the ship was worth 3 regular fighters in PvP and had to be rightfully nerfed.

The price is not a valid argument either. If we followed the logic of "Barge cost 15 billions so it has to be better at making money than everything else", then Battleships would be the most overpowered ships in the game because you paid 2 billion credits for one, while snubs would be worthless. It does suck to get your shiny expensive toy nerfed, but you have to be honest to yourself and acknowledge it was never intended to be better at powertrading ore than 5kers. Not in gameplay, or in lore, where it makes even less sense that it can speedrun Helium-3 - Helium through lanes.

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Economy foundation is built around 5kers. A Barge has 6 times more cargo than that. It is already a nightmare making it a balanced ship economy-wise, and I think Barge will continue to be too good in many areas post-release. For example supplying PoBs on short distances, and short distance deliveries in general. Or finding a money making route that, even with no trade lanes, will still earn a lot of money simply because it has 6 times more cargo than a 5ker. Maybe there's a new broken route people will find which is why Haste said he will re-balance it again in the future.

Oh and one thing that people sleep on is the anti-bump buff. From what I've heard, being bumped out of the way is one of the most dreaded things Barge players experience, and knowing you cannot be flipped around by a random enemy NPC is a huge bonus.

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tldr; trade lane nerf has been long coming, anti-bump buff is more than you think and Barge will still be great for many non-money printing activities.

Edit: Just in case, this is me speaking as a regular community member. I have nothing to do with Barge balance, or economy in general.

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