I was chatting with some of the peeps from VR and we discussed the possibility of using the Barge to quickly supply the base with it using a combination of a survey ship and a jumpdrive. I was then informed that this wouldn't work due to the Barge's powercore (I don't keep up to date with many things having not played Disco for a couple years).
With this in mind, another idea sprouted: Transform the Barge into a mobile factory/refinery. It makes plenty of sense in-RP as well as in functionality. I've seen this work via FLHook plugins on the BSG mod server so I know that it CAN be done. Here's how I envisioned it as working:
Refining:
For refining, you have two variables: the “Base” variable(s) and the “Product” variable. The “Base” variables are the products that make up whatever the “Product” variable is. There can be multiple “Base” variables included in the process.
An easy example of this would be as follows:
Base: 2x Gold Ore
Product: 1x Gold
As you can see that's a very simple example of refining. You could also produce Alloys and other commodities, like so:
Base 1: 2x Titanium
Base 2: 1x Aluminium
Product: 1x Basic Alloy
As you can see this process would be extremely beneficial to factions that own POBs. You can buy (or mine) materials on the cheap and process them into higher-grade commodities through refining. These can then be either sold or used for base construction/maintenance.
The second part of this would be the Factory side. You would be able to reverse-engineer weapons, shields, engines, etc on the ship itself, then construct them from components. The cost in components would increase or decrease depending on the class of the equipment that you're constructing, e.g Class 1 weapons would be the cheapest to make, whilst Class 9 would be much more expensive. This would open up great RP opportunities for weapons manufacturing companies, as well as pretty much any kind of construction company available.
This process would involve the same variables as above and I would imagine it going something like this:
“Justice Mk I”
Base 1: 10x High-Temperature Alloys
Base 2: 5x Superconductors
Base 3: 2x Energy Cell (I'm aware that this doesn't exist)
Product: 1x Justice Mk I
As you can see, this provides a good opportunity for RP as well as something else to do aside from hauling and fighting. I can imagine a couple of factions that would have a field day with this kind of functionality. Now the way I thought up this is as follows and there are a couple of options:
1: Add the refining ability to the Barge as a standard option, with the option to allow a factory module to be bought to add in the construction aspects.
2: Add both abilities to the Barge as standard.
3: Add both abilities to the Barge as standard, and allow the option to construct a refinery module to be built on POBs to add a similar capability.
4:Add both abilities to the Barge as standard, and allow the option to construct a refinery module to be built on POBs to add a similar capability as well as expanding the POB factory module to have the same capability as the Barge.
Obviously this is in no way concrete and I would welcome any suggestions, constructive criticism or feedback that could improve this idea.