Theme park station with rails beyond count crashes server.
Theme park station has ride that kills players.
Theme park station has ride that traps players.
1) Why would my railercoaster crash the server and not that massive 50bil block drone launcher/planet miner? Oh wait....
1,2,3) Counter productive, not visiting that station again. There will always be bad designs and these will be punished in the court of public opinion.
Right now, I see no reason what so ever to visit any station but my own (and even that is limited). If I need to buy something from some other faction/station I don't need to dock or even leave my core. Get close, press B. Done, bye-bye now. I don't even need to get a visual of the station.
Might as well just make a giant hollow sphere. How about I toss on some deathcube turrets while I'm at it? That's all I need to claim a sector and defend it.
Stations should have some real purpose. This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the shipyard update and I think shops should have a bit of an overhaul as well(*). The upcoming cargo update seems like it would at least offer the possibility of making a transshipment warehouse station. But what is going to draw people to my station instead of the station the next sector over offering the exact same services?
- Prices - Only so much you can do here and still make a profit (shop update?)
- Location - In this example, we're only talking one sector difference to the left or right. This could potentially have a significant impact in other situations, but once it's built, it ain't moving.
- Attractions - If I offer a better looking station, some side shows and a couple mini games to while away the time while your ship is undergoing repairs and cargo is being loaded, which station are you going to dock at?
So yeah, the number of visitors a station gets should have some direct effect on the Faction Points. From a programming stand point it doesn't really matter how it's decorated or what frills and gimmicks you use. But a station that gets more visitors has a greater social, economic, and political standing.
(*) I would really like Shops to have a fixed and/or editable range, allow multiple shops with different inventories, different prices based on faction/standing, etc etc. But that's off topic and I'm sure there are multiple posts already.