mining should be necessary in order for stations to produce equipment
if a station doesn't get the required materials it should stop producing stuff(tm)

I would go a bit further and suggest that if supply shortages become too great there should be local riots (station surrounded by unrats) and no docking unless player is actually carrying the needed supplies.

*in grey* +1 to PaKettle

As the devs have mentioned, the national stations "should" have enough manufacturing power to get around such issues. They were talking about station stock back then, but I feel it should apply to this too.

+1

+1, as usual. This should also tie into NPC miners and the dynamic hive. E.g. more hive means less mining means less NPC-provided ore and more reliance on human suppliers. The beauty of that is that it provides two pathways for resolution: either players can take on the burden of mining and keep the station supplied themselves, or players can arm up and go kill the bots so the NPCs can do the mining. Of course, both would be required for full production rates.

+1 to PaK's addition.

Whilst the ideas here are great additions, i think the amount of additional server activity may make it difficult to implement.

+1 if possible tho :)

+1 to Origional Post and secondaries.
Very awesome suggestion.

+1

Anything to make things more dynamic and interactive