Not sure if it's Barnacle related but I was checking out the landable binary planets in Pleiades Sector JC-U b3-2 and every time I tried to drop out of glide in the 2?.?? 9?.?? range the game crashed (completely had to end task) and when I reloaded I was at least 20 degrees away. Tried 4 times crashed every time.
MB has said that this is caused by a bugged PoI, but not one that's related to barnacles. Check his post list.
Even a pole doesn't guarantee anything because the axis of rotation precesses, like a spinning top that wobbles. Even a slight wobble makes a big difference unless the pole star is very close.
Perhaps some form of planetary conjunction is approaching, when all the large Barnacles have the correct alignment to converge on a location?
It looks like even the random spawns have a certain set of conditions they require. They spawn near the crashed ship which will have the same general characteristics.
The most common characteristic seems to be the yellow sand other than being inside a nebula.
Barnacles, ship hulls - perhaps we're spreading their spores into every system we search?
Conspiracy theory time!
The barnacles did not cause the "Caine Massey" Anaconda to crash: instead, the ship crashed due to human error while it was seeding the planet with barnacles.
The cargo racks loaded with rare materials? Those were meant to be used as fertilizer for the barnacles. The C on the shells? A logo.
Why are they planting barnacles? Why, to do what the commanders are already doing: farm the seeds for rare materials and especially the meta-alloys.
Watch out if the stuff needed to "cure" UA-infected stations will be linked to Caine Massey as well.
I wouldn't be surprised if we wake up tomorrow in a galaxy-wide game of Zarch.