In Barge 1.0 there was just one, and it was a role play peice.
In Barge 2.0, anyone could buy it and tried to power trade with it. It was painful to manuver and had a slow cruise charge.
In Barge 3.0 it became a brick and the model changed, people still tried to power trade with it but left it as a movable large storage bin.
in all three versions I was told that "Me and two others in our 5ker (thats about 15k) make more money than that barge ever could in half the time."
Now we have Jump engines and the barge is back on top, maybe. It's still a brick and a pain to get into position to jump, from what I saw in Omega 49.
The only drawing factor to the Barge is 30k space. Thats it. You get a convoy of 5kers and you're just about up there for the barge. Im sure when you factor in the ship, the fuel, the time, the more ships, the mining/commodity buying and more time, it's got to take at least 5 jumps to come out even. Anyone ever do the math for that?
I must be doing something because I've never had a 5k mooring or docking issue, but countless ones on the barge.
I see it this way, if you have a barge you got to have a jumping ship and since I dont know squat about fuel consumption, I dont know how many more ships you need.
with 3 10kers, providing they are not multiboxing, you got three players plus 1 or 3 escorts.
on the other hand, when I used to see [convoy] around, there were 5-6 of them at a time. I guess what Im getting at is player base. Getting people to zonerjump isnt catching on for other factions, is it? I dont know, havent been here in a while.
Im tired.
Sometimes, when all you want is to gain your freedom, you must be willing to risk it all.