I think decoupling the quality from the size limit is a good idea.
I was complaining in an old thread that bigger was always better. A Q1 rustbucket Death Star meeting a Q255 hyperadvanced frigate would be an interesting and uncertain encounter. And it's always seemed sensible to me that if you have lots of scrapheap materials, you can make lots of scrapheap stuff. Q limit was a little artificial. We clearly have some inertial dampening tech, so the only real spaceborne size limit, structural stress when turning, is probably irrelevant.
Spending a long time building a Q1 resource network big enough to build a Death Star will be its own deterrent, anyway. You'd just have to do it again later for higher Qs. It would be self-defeating to abuse the system too much - you'd be better of building scouts, as Haxus points out. The added, hard-coded deterrent is not needed.
The principle of limiting new players only by their own dedication and ingenuity is a good one, and vital to a pay-to-play game without story and character progression. I would support this move.
I was complaining in an old thread that bigger was always better. A Q1 rustbucket Death Star meeting a Q255 hyperadvanced frigate would be an interesting and uncertain encounter. And it's always seemed sensible to me that if you have lots of scrapheap materials, you can make lots of scrapheap stuff. Q limit was a little artificial. We clearly have some inertial dampening tech, so the only real spaceborne size limit, structural stress when turning, is probably irrelevant.
Spending a long time building a Q1 resource network big enough to build a Death Star will be its own deterrent, anyway. You'd just have to do it again later for higher Qs. It would be self-defeating to abuse the system too much - you'd be better of building scouts, as Haxus points out. The added, hard-coded deterrent is not needed.
The principle of limiting new players only by their own dedication and ingenuity is a good one, and vital to a pay-to-play game without story and character progression. I would support this move.