I think ultimately as long as it doesn't negatively affect primary gameplay flows too much I don't think it's an issue. The amount of physical spacing isn't based on available real estate when we have even the bubble region, let alone the rest of the galaxy for those deep-blackers. I don't think the instancing and such of the actual game assets would be a big deal.
The limits would seem to be more based on and by player and data management decisions, like permits (it's Elite, there could be permits), the max number of per-body locations or the top-end of the ship sensor abilities (someone mentioned having city-population numbers of settlements, they'd all fit on a single moon physically but IDK if I wanna look at this list without a really good ui management). How much the base can tie into gameplay on a financial and operational level is a factor; everyone will want a different maximum level of functionality and I don't think there's a simple answer for that.
I'd also like to split the difference on whether the bases are destroyable by making two main classes of them. The mythical "inflatable" bases sound like they could be useful but ultimately expendable resources that won't be like OMG MAH HOWSE if it's destroyed, though it'd be likely more expensive models might still hurt your credits. That leaves more permanent bases for the home makeover gameplay.
Deployable bases that could be destroyed (this needs to have searching involved because if we can just fly directly to a secret tiny base that is waaay too boring) would finally add the realtime large-target destruction combat to the game with reduced salt due to it not being somebody's house with their pet space cat inside. That seems that it would also open up factionalized player combat to an interesting new field, and give people something purposeful to do in supercruise if it's tied to search-based gameplay.
The limits would seem to be more based on and by player and data management decisions, like permits (it's Elite, there could be permits), the max number of per-body locations or the top-end of the ship sensor abilities (someone mentioned having city-population numbers of settlements, they'd all fit on a single moon physically but IDK if I wanna look at this list without a really good ui management). How much the base can tie into gameplay on a financial and operational level is a factor; everyone will want a different maximum level of functionality and I don't think there's a simple answer for that.
I'd also like to split the difference on whether the bases are destroyable by making two main classes of them. The mythical "inflatable" bases sound like they could be useful but ultimately expendable resources that won't be like OMG MAH HOWSE if it's destroyed, though it'd be likely more expensive models might still hurt your credits. That leaves more permanent bases for the home makeover gameplay.
Deployable bases that could be destroyed (this needs to have searching involved because if we can just fly directly to a secret tiny base that is waaay too boring) would finally add the realtime large-target destruction combat to the game with reduced salt due to it not being somebody's house with their pet space cat inside. That seems that it would also open up factionalized player combat to an interesting new field, and give people something purposeful to do in supercruise if it's tied to search-based gameplay.
