This suggestion is a companion to a previous suggestion about a player-owned mining structure/bot in which I briefly mentioned the possibility of incorporating ore into the manufacturing process. I have looked through the forum and the most that I have been able to find on the subject are an old thread with basically the same suggestion and the crafting thread. I want to bring this up again because there hasn't been any conversation in the second and third threads for years. Here are the links to all three, respectively:

http://vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/23788
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9296
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406

I know that we would need to hash out which ores would be needed for which items, and in what quantities, but mainly I want to emphasize that incorporating ore and a mining structure or queen-like bot into the manufacturing process could have a serious and interesting impact on the player economy and strategic gameplay--particularly in terms of goal-based player conflict. As a result, mining would no longer be an irrelevant task to perform for credits and license levels. I suppose all that needs to be discussed is the viability and implementation of such an idea.

As an addition to my suggestion, I also think incorporating player-owned "shops" (which have been mentioned before) would be a great idea. They would by definition serve as inventory storage and banks--and again, some sort of queen-like bot could work just as well and even serve a variety of functions (like conducting automated mining operations, as discussed in the companion to this thread). Similarly, capships could stand in for the "queen-like bot" motif, allowing the devs to kill a whole flock of the proverbial birds with just one ship. This may pose strategic balance issues, but it may also be just what we need to jump-start a new and vibrant player economy.