You are correct. But first, developers need to do a number of things:
1) Introduce a cargo container for products into the game. Even if it is larger than the largest detail in the game. It would be logical. Each part has a volume in kv. This container should also have volume and be filled with parts and ores.
Well, to make that happen we first need the Inventory v2 to support volume-based limitations, as I've previously written in one of the update note threads. A lot depends on that already. Various modular crates of different sizes and purposes are in the works, but I still wonder if the modular inventory is something you offer as the first step in cargo technology. We have CLB and CLF and Tractor Beams and can attach stuff with bolts. Introducing the modular crates into early game heavily devalues all the forthcoming technologies apart from the Towing Beam.
Local scarcity would work even with the current environment. It already works with moon-specific ores. You could even do that with more common asteroid ores by scaling the maximum fraction of such ores in the asteroid volume (instead of trying to attach a whole new parameter of purity). You could do ore hotspots not by increasing the chance of an asteroid carrying the ore to spawn, but instead by making asteroids in such hot spots that have the ore dominating over the substrate material, to the point where asteroids can consist entirely out of the ore. I bet people would fight for such spots, but the problem with it is that lack of refining makes it waaay too effective and would break the economy even more than it already is.
2) Finally make a normal market. Because the current auction is a parody of it. Why was it necessary to separate lots with the same price? (there is a simple principle - first come - first sold). Why can't I place a buy order? (This is true for both miners and manufacturers. Some see a need, while others do not need to constantly monitor the market).Why ignore the previous experience of other games and make such a poor auction interface?
Indeed. I was speaking about buy orders since the introduction of the AH. Before I got hooked to SB, I have been playing Crossout - a Russian vehicular combat game. Played 3200 hours to this day. They have the market model that you and I are aware of - the system where all orders of the same value are grouped into one block (although in XO they choose the orders to fulfill randomly from the bidders). And they have buy orders, because those orders inform the demand. At this moment we can only evaluate the supply. That is a great impediment to SB economy foundation.
In my personal opinion, all trading stations have to have a dynamic economy simulation. Selling ore to the station replenishes station supply and drives the reward down, making it better to sell ores that the station doesn't have in abundance. This ore supply is then linked to the station's shops. Shop sells completed parts, which the station can manufacture to a set number, using the ores it have been provided with and the items that players have sold through the Shop interface. Abundace of parts drop the price to buy and the reward for selling. Station cannot reproduce more advanced parts, but can sell them if players will sell such parts first. All these linked parameters are self-compensating, meaning that all shortages and excesses will automatically level out to norm over time to prevent freezes in player-station interactions, and changes to costs and rewards applies over time as well to avoid immediate exploitation.
3) Allow players to place a market on their stations. Even in the form of a very very expensive module with the maximum size of the station. Placement requirements can be balanced.
I really don't think that a player station is a viable position for an entire AH, but I prefer for the players to be able to place Shop Interfaces the same way we now can do so for ship docks and resource networks. Players then would build various shops on their stations and moon bases, instead of just relying on a massive module providing all functionality.