With the introduction of mining and resource gathering, will there be any other uses for gathered/refined resources other than just selling them to an NPC in the system where they are worth the most?asked by Maud'dib

It depends, in general you're going to mine, then either refine it yourself or sell it onto someone for them to refine, and then deliver it to an economic node that's a consumer of those goods. In the first stage we'll have NPC economic nodes that you sell your refined ore to, but in future players will be able to own their own economic nodes, might even have the whole manufacturing chain covered. You might for example have a munitions business, or ship factory, or whatever. You might mine or have your people mine ore, which they take to your refinery, which then can pass the materials onto your factory to make the final goods. That's kind of the idea of the resource gathering, hope it makes sense!