Station improvements

Beyond storage sizing, DA-Eco applies four more subsystems at station creation. All live in md/finalisestations.xml and fire together during God_DefaultFinaliseFactory / NewStation_GenerateFactory.

DAImproveStationLayouts — racial connectors

Lines 381-463. For station plans ≥10 modules, inserts racial structural connectors between production blocks. Adds visual variety — vanilla stations of all races end up looking similar because connectors are picked from a shared pool.

Per-race connector selection

Owner race	Base connector	Cross connector	Base weight	Cross weight
Argon	struct_arg_base_02	struct_arg_cross_01	50%	33%
Paranid	struct_par_base_02	struct_par_cross_02	50%	33%
Teladi	struct_tel_base_02	struct_tel_cross_01	50%	100% ← always add cross when connector fires
Split	struct_spl_base_03	struct_spl_cross_01	25%	40%
Terran	struct_ter_base_03	struct_ter_cross_01	20%	33%
Boron	struct_bor_base_04	struct_bor_cross_01	20%	33%

Xenon are skipped — struct_xen_* connectors don’t exist in the vanilla asset set.

Effect

Argon stations get lots of struct_arg_base_02 cross-braces between production modules. Terran stations get sparser but taller Terran-specific connectors. Teladi’s 100% cross-weight makes their stations distinctively cross-braced.

DAImproveHabitation — largest-first habitation

Lines 465-496. Sorts habitation modules by workforce.capacity descending — largest first.

Vanilla behavior

Round-robin habitation placement: for each habitation slot in the station plan, cycle through habitation module macros in registration order. Result: many small habitation modules spread across the station.

DA behavior

Take the biggest habitation module and place as many as needed to hit workforce target. Result: 1-2 large habitation modules instead of 5-6 small ones.

Why it matters

• Fewer separate modules → less pathing overhead for NPCs moving between hab and workstation.
• Compact housing → makes station layouts more legible on the map.
• Aligns with DA-ware production workforce demand — DA-ware modules have the highest workforce impact in the game (see DA wares). Large habitation is a prerequisite.

DAImproveSMDocks — dock coverage

Lines 497-556. Same DESC-sort principle as habitation but for S/M docks.

Algorithm

Sort dock modules by numdocks.{tag.dock_m} and numdocks.{tag.dock_s} descending. For each dock size (M then S), pick the largest module that provides that dock type, add ceil(target / capacity) copies.

Tie handling: if a module provides both M and S docks, both counters decrement together when that module is added.

Effect

Trade stations get 2-3 large dock modules with mixed M+S capacity instead of vanilla’s 5-6 separate small dock modules. Bigger visual footprint, more docks per module.

Pier ceiling

Related setting: libraries/parameters.xml sets:

• CapitalTradeRatio 0.55→0.65 — 65% of the trade station’s dock capacity is XL/L pier vs S/M dock (was 55%).
• Pier ceiling 12 — no station can have more than 12 pier modules (vanilla was unbounded and could produce absurd 30-pier stations).

Defence module rebalance

Lines 53-75. Recomputes defence-module count based on threat score of the strongest opposing faction in the nearby cluster.

Vanilla behavior

Fixed defence module count per station type (typically 3-4 defence modules).

DA behavior

1. Query $DAhighestscore — the highest threat score among opposing (non-friendly) factions with military presence within N clusters.
2. Compute defence-module count in the range 5-6 (up from 3-4) based on Def_StationScore = highest_opposing_threat ±15%.
3. Xenon-adjacent sectors get more defence modules than Argon-core sectors.

Effect

Frontier stations (Xenon border, contested clusters) get 6 defence modules — visibly bristling with turrets. Deep-territory stations still get 5 (still more than vanilla).

Xenon skipped — Xenon defence works differently (they don’t build defence modules; they just spawn defense fleets).

Where all this fires

All four subsystems + storage sizing fire in the same event chain:

event_god_created_station
  └─ God_DefaultFinaliseFactory (vanilla)
     └─ DA patch: run DA subsystems
        ├─ DAIncreaseStartingStorage (storage-sizing)
        ├─ DAImproveStationLayouts (racial connectors)
        ├─ DAImproveHabitation (largest-first)
        ├─ DAImproveSMDocks (largest-first)
        └─ Defence rebalance (threat-score based)

For non-factory stations (shipyards / wharves / equipdocks / tradestations) that bypass God_DefaultFinaliseFactory, only mlog_DAEco_BoostNonFactoryStorage applies retroactively. Habitation and connector improvements don’t apply because those station types have fixed pre-built templates from vanilla.

Bigger factories — the module quota unlock

Not part of finalisestations.xml but conceptually adjacent. In libraries/parameters.xml:

• production=1→25 (limits) — a station can host 25 identical production modules per type.
• In practice capped at 5 by libraries/modules.xml maxlimits.

Plus factionlogic_economy.xml Request_Factory ProductionLimit 1→5 — when a faction requests a new factory, it can immediately plan 5 modules per type instead of 1.

Combined result: a mature Argon Hull Parts factory has 5 Hull Parts production modules on one station (vanilla had 1 per station, so needed 5 stations for the same output).

Related pages

• Storage sizing — the primary subsystem in the same event chain
• DA wares — DA-ware modules benefit most from the habitation and workforce mechanic
• Xenon specifics — most improvements skip Xenon; Xenon get separate systems