as the operator of many POBs i can see a serious shortfall in their significance
yeah you got it they are a pain in the doldrums. and little else
the truth is they dont contribute anything other than being a focus point
sure you can build x, y & z in the factories but the ingredients for those are flying out the window of your rp or are 'turned off' etc
so
lets address a serious POB flaw
its so obvious realy
"you cannot buy and sell at different prices"
do you remember that proud moment as you set up your first POB
shortly followed by that
oh frack moment when you realised a simple truth
buy$ = sell$
ie not realy a marketplace for your effort
so solutions
new factory units
1) The Refinery (yeah its a generalisation)
feed your base + Refinery a raw (ie mined) product and it churns away (ie over time and consuming power from your POBs reactor [yeah another brick shaped there]). Given the presence of the 'Refinery' it automaticaly converts the ore into its refined equivalent. Economicaly it is just a repertition of the ore (or similar plus a tad for running your "reactor")
2) The Assembley Matrix (ok i like to generalise)
this factory will assemble a set of commodities into a frinished product and the value of that product will be greater than the sum of its components to the equivalent of ore in terms of profitability to a trader (only).
3) The Cell Block.
A location to incarcerate those scum you so righteously pewed. It has X number of cells and each will pay a profit per d/m/y/WE as per relevant to the 'mission' [use yer imagination here]. early release based on profitablility could/is happening. 'Block' populations are high so you have to ensure you fill the space occupiable to realise a healthy profit [ ie no need to trade for policemen/military ]. erm the idea is it works on you pewing mission based mission targets, and those being based on 'faction' published hit lists [ i dont mean npc missions , ie go kill LH-blahblah a PC on a list]. [this could be expanded in many ways].
so, ball is in play
left or right don't matter
be polite
Was a discussion about refineries there as well. I'm broadly in favour of anything that makes PoBs a little more economically nuanced and interesting to run. Dependent on the implementation, of course. Giving the bases a productive, beneficial use would potentially detract from the many negative and harmful ways they can be used, which can only be a good thing.