rinku said:
My main issue is that each option in game terms has some reason for existing (otherwise, why bother listing it?).
With the "rich customer segment" of the starship market, the reason can
just be "high fashion", the wish to own something that is obviously diffe-
rent from what other, less wealthy people own - even if this reduces the
ship's functionality somewhat.
This would hardly influence merchant ships or warships, but I could well
imagine that shipyards producing yachts and safari ships would try to co-
me up with a new, differently looking model every few years, and with
thousands of such shipyards in the Third Imperium every possible shape
would probably be built somewhere.
As for other, more "pedestrian" ship types, there will at least be the odd
experimental craft built to find out whether an unusual configuration has
some unexpected advantage, as well as the perhaps not so rare design
mistake by a naval architect who dreamed up "a brilliant new idea" that
finally turned out to be a silly mistake.
You only have to look at the history of sailing ships or early steam ships
to see that people have a tendency to build everything possible at least
once, and with the reduced information flow in an interstellar society it
will happen more often, because it is more difficult to learn from the mis-
takes of others.
So, every configuration could be found "out there" between the worlds of
the Third Imperium, whether it makes sense or not. :wink:
