A bit of disclaimer - I don't have problem with existence of big ships. The problem me and quite a few other players I know of that supposedly are against 'gigantism' doesn't lie in the big ships themselves but in the flaws of mechanics and balance that force player to create such with no alternative and hardly any cost if they want to achieve certain levels of efficiency.
Frikkin wall of text, ahoy.
Seriously, gonna be rambling now.
Those of you who know me (or simply scrolled through) know I can ramble a lot, even if it does make sense at times.
You were warned.
I understand OP's arguments and he raises some good points, but being concerned about disparity from the standpoint of balance of costs and profits rather than power between ships of varied sizes, which only seems to be uncommon perspective (or so I hope, because hating big ships just because they're 'bik and stronk' is slightly silly), I note a few issues.
In fact, successfully detailing and building a detailed and efficient large vessel is a difficult challenge that takes more time and effort than any other singular act in Starmade.
It's not the case! Yes, I agree that building big ships take longer but most people do that bit as an entertaining part of the gameplay, a fun in itself. It isn't (and, to be honest - for the sake of gameplay, shouldn't) be any hardship nor it in any way makes up for the increased stats and overall efficiency of a ship - it shouldn't be even worth mentioning since building stuff is by design part of the entertainment and a goal of the game. And even if by some horrible decision it would be a gigantic effort and bothersome hardship, so far, on most servers it's a matter of building one such vessel, saving the blueprint and then spawning more for easily acquirable funds.
Generally, I only address it because I see some people actually using that as an argument.
The problem I have with the big ships personally and one of the most horrible failures of StarMade when it comes to balance for now is that the design itself is not a problem. Aside from the matter of time addressed above, the matter of resource/credits acquisition is trivial. Average player who just became acquainted with basics of the game without diving into intricaties of it can easily acquire cash to build humongous megaships in a matter of hours on most servers using default values. With strip-mining of whole planets and veritable treasure troves on pirate stations that without overtly much effort can set up a single player for the length of his whole gameplay, acquiring all the funds needed to build such a ship is too easy. Even if one cannot undertake every profitable occupation or doesn't have any good source of income nearby, it's very easy to travel elsewhere or acquire huge donation (when multiplayer) from others since credits are so common people can share and produce more very easily.
Think 'everyone gets millions of dollars, but without inflation and with infinite supply of goods at frozen prices'. On top of that, once initial expenses of acquiring a vessel are covered, there are absolutely no drawbacks and nearly only profits. There's no necessary maintenance, glaring flaws requiring average cruiser to employ other support vessels, constant drain on any kind of resource. Each and every well-designed ship is completely independent, defying atrophy and without need for any skills or supply, eternally useful item. The only costs are when said ship is employed against opponent of similar or greater firepower - which, using OPs argument about size limiting capabilities - means most likely another huge ship or weapon platform. Creating or overcoming of which also does not drain any finite resources that cannot be replenished.
In fact the only resource I'd consider finite in multiplayer where fleets of huge ships fight is players - which actually encourages building huge ships because there's far more resources than available pilots and its obvious one wants to provide each pilot with as powerful vessel as possible.
Which facts lead to vicious cycle where everyone is sooner or later building a big ship and maintaining (though there's no real maintenance) a big ship and anyone wanting to be a valid competition has to do this since everyone else will do so too.
After that, there's a matter of complexity of design. Both argument for and against kind of bother me here:
1) Building a bigger ship to beat out your opponent with a *normal* ship is lazy and you should just build a *better* ship of the same size to kill him.
Look, I hear this one a LOT. And there's a simple counter argument - if both ship's builders are NOT incompetent, their ships will always be around the same level of performance.
The fact that there's easily achievable upper limit of efficiency when it comes to ships of certain size is actually a separate problem, lying in the fact that ships can be overall death-machines with no decent specialisation that isn't reminding one of playing rock-paper-scissors (and honestly, we didn't even reach that level since currently it all bogs down to piling up enough power gen, shield and weapon blocks in absolutely every design). I am not surprised nor can fairly criticize people who build big ships for increased efficiency, since it is reasonable. The fact that it is how people have to play to increase the efficiency is a problem.
In other words, what bothers me, in relation to that, that again, there's no reasonable price for the rise in quality. I do agree with OP that it should be about skill of both the builder and the pilot, but that should apply no matter if the ship is small or big. Currently, all ships, no matter external aesthetics are just piles of cubes taking into consideration only scaling of power of each subsystem. You can get bog-standard, stereotypical but functional frigate, enlarge it 10 times and get average in capabilities battlecruiser.
Sure, people claim that mass of a single huge ship divided into dozens of small ones will result in said dozens winning. But it's hardly argument that I can find of value. The fact is that we both play and judge the balance from the standpoint of player's actions and average player will pilot one ship. He won't make a deal with some other player during PvP stating 'oh, your ship is so big, let me do magic and temporarily divide into 30 buddies in fighters so we will total in mass to similar to that of your ship'. Every player will want their single ship to be as powerful as possible and won't give a crap about hypothetical 30 clones that - if existing - would allow him victory even if they'd pilot some small fighters.
The argument is naive given current economy - provided you will have those 30 buddies, guess what - they won't have a gentleman's deal with every big ship's pilot, asking to get their stats beforehand so they can divide it among themselves. No, each one of them will get a huge ship to not have just a slight edge but completely eradicate their opponents. It's simply logical. The fact is that there's no practical constraint since it's capable pilots that are limited resource, not ship parts, so no one will be dividing themselves into smaller units.
'But drones win every time!' one may claim. Well, and guess what - heavier, bigger drones will win more. Especially when deployed from bigger carriers. 'Turrets wreck everything!' - those can also be built on big carriers. Carriers deploying sizeable drones with turrets. No ceiling here beside a few caps, server/client performance and building crap till it becomes too boring to matter.
So, again, the problem isn't in the fact that there are big ships or in the fact that those ships can do a lot. The problem is that all of that comes at almost no price - big ships can do a lot but don't require a lot. They don't require much of intelligence in design in comparison with building average small ships, they don't come with shortcomings or flaws that would encourage diversity in function and tactics. All the ships, in all size categories battle, mine and travel in exactly the same way, without requiring additional crews, finite resources etc. And if bigger does it all better, players who want to do as good as possible go for that.
There are people who dislike big ships because such destroy them or because they simply want to play with small ships. To be honest, I also prefer flying well-designed, but small and cozy ships - but that shouldn't be argument for forcing people to my or anyone else's playstyle. Those who actually aren't selfish, I want to believe, oppose gigantism because it's simply unbalanced and the only effective way of doing things - which is a sad thing and quite a waste of potential while being a destructive trend that goes over what some players, no matter their feelings, are able to play with because of their hardware limitations. That's why we also get an influx of suggestions which don't fight the idea of big ships as much as their unquestionable supremacy in every situation with no unavoidable downsides - things like life support, crews, boarding or scaling of damage/shields/armor so big ships will win but be crippled enough to require expensive repairs at the price of victory.
Personally, I'd find a huge ship something really cool if it'd deserve it - if it would really be a proof of someone's ingenuity and resourcefulness, a really rare achievement, testament to dedication, teamwork and vision rather than absolute standard for everyone - because the risks and constant price of having such a ship in comparison to its effectiveness wouldn't be something average player would go for. While it makes hardly a good argument, right now I understand people who say that big ships are boring - because outside of looks, mechanics-wise no matter what we fly, we fly the same thing at different points on the same scale where bigger is better, and only slightly harder to get and as easy to maintain as 'small'.
