D I R E C T O R
I've been thinking for a while about Civilian Stations, mainly along the lines of models that I hope to be able to produce. However, (and this is entirely my subjective opinion) I think that the production limits for Civilian Stations are very restricting. One would reason that to build a Star Destroyer, Battlecruiser, etc, that the shipyard to build so would have to be at least twice the size of the ship produced. Fact-checkers out there, vindicate me, or criticize me for that estimate. But at the board's current limits, any civilian station beyond 3 kilometers is required to be produced at a level of semi-unique, and that's bumped up again to full-on unique once a station passes 10 kilometers in diameter.
Now, I would like to outline why I think that, sure, one could argue that technically it's possible that stations large than ten kilometers would be hard or completely not feasible for a company or faction to produce. However, I would like to make several points. One, 'balancing' in the board is usually done in cases of PVP; this is why you can see examples in the Factory where the ratings of a mining laser might technically by unbalanced, but since the mining laser isn't going to be used (and can't be used) in a PVP setting, then it's passed on that. I've seen the same conventional thinking applied to how hyperdrive ratings on ships are generally unweighted, giving that in PVP they really wouldn't be relevant. So that's my first point -- in the current example of how balancing would be applied, large civilian stations would not be 'unbalanced' because they wouldn't contribute to PVP.
A second point that I think undermines the argument that large amounts of stations that big 'wouldn't be feasible' is the overall lack of production accountability and economy on the board. By production accountability, I'm talking about how many ships and stuff factions and companies are allowed to produce, which is effectively unlimited. There is no place where judges are required to ask whether a company or faction has enough access to resources, manpower, or technology. Technically, a company or faction could produce millions of 3 kilometer stations because the idea of Chaos isn't to be too overbearing or strict, at least from my impression. If a company or faction could by those rules produce millions of 3 kilometer stations, then they should be able to produce how many larger stations they would want to, too. A company or faction producing a million three-kilometer stations would consume roughly the same resources as it would take to produce 37,500 stations of 80 kilometers in size -- much more than the current 'unique' limit. Essentially my second argument is, by way of no real economy or limiting factors on the numbers of the ships produced, the argument that 'it would be logistically unfeasible to produce and maintain such a large station' doesn't really hold up. I want to highlight that I am arguing for civilian stations only, as military stations and ships are limited in production levels because of PVP balancing, of which I totally agree.
My third argument is that the limiting size of the civilian station would and does hamper the writing of those who would be interested in smuggling, trade, commerce, bounty hunting, industry, factory, economics, and almost every niche outside of PVP. It is already extremely time-consuming to make a space station, more so than in my opinion than any other technology or lore on the faction; this is due mainly to the fact that a space station requires both a factory submission and a codex submission, the latter to make it an actual location in the site's lore. Being able to make models that would not be unique in production would greatly reduce that amount of time spent, allowing for more time spent actually writing and as to not flood the Factory with almost copy/pastes of practically the same thing.
And now, let the discourse begin.
Now, I would like to outline why I think that, sure, one could argue that technically it's possible that stations large than ten kilometers would be hard or completely not feasible for a company or faction to produce. However, I would like to make several points. One, 'balancing' in the board is usually done in cases of PVP; this is why you can see examples in the Factory where the ratings of a mining laser might technically by unbalanced, but since the mining laser isn't going to be used (and can't be used) in a PVP setting, then it's passed on that. I've seen the same conventional thinking applied to how hyperdrive ratings on ships are generally unweighted, giving that in PVP they really wouldn't be relevant. So that's my first point -- in the current example of how balancing would be applied, large civilian stations would not be 'unbalanced' because they wouldn't contribute to PVP.
A second point that I think undermines the argument that large amounts of stations that big 'wouldn't be feasible' is the overall lack of production accountability and economy on the board. By production accountability, I'm talking about how many ships and stuff factions and companies are allowed to produce, which is effectively unlimited. There is no place where judges are required to ask whether a company or faction has enough access to resources, manpower, or technology. Technically, a company or faction could produce millions of 3 kilometer stations because the idea of Chaos isn't to be too overbearing or strict, at least from my impression. If a company or faction could by those rules produce millions of 3 kilometer stations, then they should be able to produce how many larger stations they would want to, too. A company or faction producing a million three-kilometer stations would consume roughly the same resources as it would take to produce 37,500 stations of 80 kilometers in size -- much more than the current 'unique' limit. Essentially my second argument is, by way of no real economy or limiting factors on the numbers of the ships produced, the argument that 'it would be logistically unfeasible to produce and maintain such a large station' doesn't really hold up. I want to highlight that I am arguing for civilian stations only, as military stations and ships are limited in production levels because of PVP balancing, of which I totally agree.
My third argument is that the limiting size of the civilian station would and does hamper the writing of those who would be interested in smuggling, trade, commerce, bounty hunting, industry, factory, economics, and almost every niche outside of PVP. It is already extremely time-consuming to make a space station, more so than in my opinion than any other technology or lore on the faction; this is due mainly to the fact that a space station requires both a factory submission and a codex submission, the latter to make it an actual location in the site's lore. Being able to make models that would not be unique in production would greatly reduce that amount of time spent, allowing for more time spent actually writing and as to not flood the Factory with almost copy/pastes of practically the same thing.
And now, let the discourse begin.