5.0 - Hotfix 9

[Haste]

Afaik you could already jump an empty barge last patch, you just needed another player for it.

And instead of sticking to that as a way to encourage more player-to-player interaction (hey, someone could take the opportunity to RP as a provider of Barge jumping services!) you decided the Barge should be turned back to the solo hauling duty ?

At least it now has Docking modules...

I have only found out about the Barge buffs myself with the patch drop, I'll let Haste explain the reasoning behind the change.

I forgot to reply to this.

The reasoning is pretty simple, really. The Barge got hit with a pretty sizeable nerf, as we all know. Giving it a bunch of extra utility slots is a buff that doesn't in any way impact its ability to earn unusually high amounts of credits per hour. It's "free", in a sense. So I gave it those buffs. Does it technically discourage co-op play like having a friend jump your Barge around? I suppose it does. But any random battleship can already jump solo. Do we want dedicated jumping ships because it's just too convenient to be able to jump around a combat ship on your own? I don't think so.

Anyhow, in return the Barge now has the option to bypass a bunch of slow travel time or a particularly dense asteroid field to get to a specific destination (let's say an ore mining field somewhere), which is a large quality of life buff for the ship. I think it's an impactful change that Barge owners will appreciate without "breaking the bank".

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