Station Building Preferences -- Form vs Function

[stooper88]

I'm curious about other players' station building preferences. Do you have certain rules or habits when designing your stations or do you just place modules wherever they can be added easily? I've realized that I can't help but try to optimize my modules to fit in the least amount of space possible. There's plenty of plot area available but all my stations are turning out to be dense and compact like they were shipped in an Ikea flatpack box. What does everyone else do?



I imagine at one end of the spectrum, there are the stations that are aesthetically superb but also logical. Example features would be:

• Unobstructed solar panels that all face a consistent direction (presumably the local star) to allow for maximum sunlight exposure.
• Grouping related production modules for visible production chains (e.g. adjacent scrap processor and recycler, adjacent meat and food ration production modules, etc).
• All modules physically connected without any "model clipping" or overlapping modules. No floating or orphaned modules disconnected from the station.
• Construction biased across a single planar field (2-dimensional vs 3-dimensional building).
• Uniform orientation so that all modules are canonically "right side up" not sideways or upside down.
• Extensive use of connecting modules (vertical, horizontal, and cross) to create separation between station modules for appealing geometry and realistic "flight zones".
• Racial conformity to avert disparate module styles.

At the other end would be stations that subvert form in favor of pure practical function. Example design choices would be:

• Unrestricted placement of modules, whether connected or disconnected, non-overlapping or colliding.
• Unrestricted orientation of modules (upside down habitations, piers tilted at arbitrary angles, docks placed sideways, etc).
• Illogical positioning of modules (solar panels sandwiched together and facing random directions, ungrouped placement of production modules, etc).
• Avoidance of connecting modules in favor of other station modules (i.e. using storage modules or L Argon habitat in place of vertical and horizontal connectors).
• Exclusive use of L size storage and habitation modules for maximum "utility"
• Deliberate mixing of race/faction modules to achieve maximum "utility"
  
  I'm curious how does everyone else build their stations? Do you do any of the above (or anything not listed)? Do you build stations like this?
  
  Also, despite my pragmatism when building stations, I find that I really enjoy visiting the station interiors and especially appreciate that Egosoft added the various observation decks. I think it's so wonderful to take in the scenery from the different vantage points. However, I wish there was a feature to either rename or automatically provide unique labels for these modules. Currently, there's no way to distinguish between multiple docks and observation decks on the same station. So when I want to see a Xenon battle from a specific side of the station or want to stop by every trader to search for a specific ware, I'm often forced to play the transporter roulette game multiple times before I arrive where I want to be.

[Raptor34]

My actual stations, not one's you just throw down for w/e reason, generally start with a center module, generally the circle or whatever one with 4 or 3 in the case of the Borons attachment points, and then go out mostly symmetrical. Does result in them looking samey and unappealing though, but not too bad.
Terran one's with that hexa dock I use that as the center and then build up and down, these look better imo, a little more compact.

[GCU Grey Area]

This is typical of the sort of stations I tend to build: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kxmvbxuc ... 62yea&dl=0

I build stations in all 3 dimensions, generally with radial symmetry. They tend to be quite compact with many overlapping modules, built at whatever angle works best for the look I'm going for. They're usually single species stations, unless I'm playing as a Split (their stations also need Argon habitation & food modules for the slaves). I consider it essential for solar panels to be unobstructed & orientated towards the local sun. If I'm intending to use the same station design in multiple sectors (e.g. station in above screenshot) I build the panels 120° apart so there's always 2/3 of them facing the sun.

[stooper88]

This is typical of the sort of stations I tend to build: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kxmvbxuc ... 62yea&dl=0

I build stations in all 3 dimensions, generally with radial symmetry. They tend to be quite compact with many overlapping modules, built at whatever angle works best for the look I'm going for. They're usually single species stations, unless I'm playing as a Split (their stations also need Argon habitation & food modules for the slaves). I consider it essential for solar panels to be unobstructed & orientated towards the local sun. If I'm intending to use the same station design in multiple sectors (e.g. station in above screenshot) I build the panels 120° apart so there's always 2/3 of them facing the sun.

If I'm reading and counting correctly, that station has 633 modules, not counting the 480 "other modules" which I assume are mostly connecting modules. But those others could also include some observation decks or gambling dens or whatnot too. Either way, just purely incredible. Very well done! Can't imagine how long it took to build... If I had to guess, maybe fully completed on day 5, right?

[Treycore]

I always start with a center piece like the cross in the middle then use vertical connectors to go down as far as possible and I always place the piers down there with the storage.

Then I go vertically up from my center connector and place all the production on top.

I’m really trying to break this habit to make some better looking stations though since you can always obviously tell my stations look pretty samey.

[euclid]

I used to build Tesco-like monster stations, pseudo-selfsustained (i.e. except minerals, gas, liquids) and did not care about looks, jammed in modules anywhere. However, recently started a new game and now I'm exclusively on small stations, each for one product, with a design that also pleases the eye.

Cheers Euclid

[GCU Grey Area]

If I'm reading and counting correctly, that station has 633 modules, not counting the 480 "other modules" which I assume are mostly connecting modules. But those others could also include some observation decks or gambling dens or whatnot too. Either way, just purely incredible. Very well done! Can't imagine how long it took to build... If I had to guess, maybe fully completed on day 5, right?

Yes, those 480 'other modules' are all basic connecting modules. Although in this case that may be a bit of a misnomer, given that few of them connect to anything, not even each other. Purely there for aesthetic purposes - the central mechanical core is built within a hexagonal framework of Boron connecting modules.

Good guess on construction time, reckon it must have taken around 5 days or so. Was not however built at the start of the game. Was already on day 20 (or thereabouts) before construction started. Prior to construction had my HQ in Black Hole Sun supplying ARG & ANT shipyards/wharves, to help with their war against the Terrans. However when the BHS terraforming mission had concluded needed to build something to replace it when HQ moved on to the next terraforming job (HQ looks like this by the way).

Have built 6 of them to date to support various factions, mostly identical (I copy changes made to one to all of the rest) except with regards to their solar panels - those in sectors with less sunlight have taller solar arrays to compensate.