Admin's personal preference isnt a good decision making measure for various factions' cities, to tell them what their population can be and what they get from it. Only humans can judge how beautiful and livable they consider a space to be for themselves, but admin favoritism becomes a serious issue sometimes, and humans also arent very consistent about rating things on the same basis over and over again; we tend to change opinions over time. And we are talking about npc's living in these places, not people, and what factors these npcs look for in their spaces. That rooms idea sounds cool, but I bet that would eat up a lot of CPU when trying to determine what rooms are.
Maybe players can define rooms. The old docking block code is still floating around, those old ships still load and display docking areas at least. Maybe we can use those blocks to define rooms. Put blocks down, one at an origin corner, select that one and place three more, one to define each of the dimensions, it forms a rectangular prism based on that space between those blocks. The blocks that would be contained must have an outer wall composed of hull/armor/glass/something solid, even as slabs, and one wall must have a door at least 1m wide and 2m high, along the same lines as the defining markers. The rest of the space must be empty of hull/armor components at the least, and cant share space with other rooms. Then the volume of the space is calculated, and the area of floor space is calculated. Then you can place non-voxel blocks, like the pipes and computer console decorations, for furnishings in those rooms (We need chairs now guys!). Open that origin block and in there define what this space is supposed to be, and based on its volume, floor space, and the furnishings present in it the game calculates how well that space suits that need. Living areas dont have to be huge, but commercial warehouses, community centers and factories probably need more space. A population basically needs space to live, places to enjoy themselves, and a means to provide a living wage to upkeep this space. So some algorithm can determine how well your city fits those needs.
And then players can make it as beautiful or hideous as they desire, and other players can decide if they enjoy doing business there or somewhere else. The mass and defensive stats of the entity of course define how well it will fare when someone starts shooting at it.
