For the most part, so far at least, not big differences from ships.
I did notice the armour table is slightly different. On ships, molecular bonded armour has a max of TL+4, but on space stations, it is only TL.
Actually, there are very few differences I am noticing right off. Seems like it is using a lot of pages to repeat mostly the same stuff.
Or am I missing something?
Main differences I'm seeing:
* Manoeuvre Drive size & cost
* Bridge sizes table
* The cost of some, but not all, Core computers (is the one that is the same price an error?)
* Crew (no pilot, astrogator, steward, etc, but most [all?] others are the same)
* Low Berth costs & power. (error?)
* Recommended common area space.
* Space Station Options
Of these, only the space station options & the bridge table are a major difference from ship design. It seems like a lot of space could have been saved by combining all the repeated space station tables, text & sidebars with the respective ship material, noting the minor differences as they show up.
There's even a sidebar on p.60 about it:
Maybe the 9 pages devoted to space stations that are essentially redundant can be reduced to 1-2, plus the 4 pages of new space station options, freeing up 6-7 pages for other great stuff.ships and space station can be viewed as interchangeable. ...
Fundamentally, a space station is a ship that lacks any real motive system. ... that is the only real difference between a space station and a ship.
Again, or am I missing something. I admit I haven't read and compared it all in detail with the ship design, but most does seem redundant...