Can you imagine anything being more labor intensive to draw for Starsector than battlestations, David? Or do these behemoths take the crown?
Nope. They're pretty well up there- although,
having now gone through all that which is described in the blog post, it's gotten a lot easier.
I was interested how design influenced firepower and vice versa. Some of the early designed focused on one to the detriment of the other and some of the concepts had a bullet-hell feel while others seemed "practical" but not particularly threatening.
Of course you can't say anything but I would squeal like a school girl if other future stations had built-in super weapons in them. Maybe not Death Star super-lasers but other unique weapons that are on a scale larger than even capital ships can field. The current Remnant faction is not lacking in any way but at the end of the day, it's still using the same weapons as everything else. Remnant fleets and stations using exotic weaponry would further distinguish them as completely non-player.
We've ... discussed ways of making special enemies even more special. Heck, I was asked about this earlier today - and yeah, I guess we could make one-off special things that blow you away, but it feels more correct to make conjunctions of existing game mechanics working together be the thing that blows you away, you know? Though maybe this is from an attitude that one-off content is a less efficient investment of dev time in the long-term plan to finish the game than dynamic content is. So maybe we'll feel better about one-off Fun Stuff once all the features are checked off? Maybe; gonna have to think on this.
Another answer: It feels kinda obvious to rely on a
mere giant weapon, maybe. Surely the true dangers are more clever, more sinister ... Not ruling out putting a giant F-you gun on a secret baddie, mind you. Because that would be funny.