I think the hostile restart being quite far away is a legit concern, and it probably should be closer the next time we do something like this.
The repairship was almost certainly a necessity though, given that it took over two hours for the Barge to reach the destination.
Ultimately there's a limit to how well the sides in something like this can be balanced by the setup, I mean it's not like we can force people to play the attackers, or prevent them from playing defenders, we can only encourage it by making it easier for them.
Also it was surprisingly entertaining flying the Heavy Lifter. Kudos.