but the SSB modules are rather low-poly
Ummm no, they really aren't. Especially considering that most of their polies are invisible once stuff is put together. If I remember correctly, the typical SSBB hab module has somewhere around 4000 faces (the ones with windows have a lot more). For a reference, your average X3 reunion model has about 25000. So if you put six modules together, you already have the same polycount, and most of them will be invisible. .
Now the catch of course is, what is something really intended for. For most people, it's the process of actually building something, not using it once it's done, so the excessive poly count is ok, as you'll probably be looking more at the unintegrated modules than at the integrated ones.
Yet there are other people (like me) for which building is more kind of a nuisance, and mostly want to play around with what they built. For those, Gregs modules are terribly uneconomic. If I'll ever release a module galery of my own, it'll probably be below 200 faces for a hab module. A 12-sided cylinder with three segments, plus front and rear side, makes 120 faces. If it really needs it I'd throw in the
outside of a docking ring (with a flat front), which would produce me another 48 faces. Modeling outside and inside of a docking ring would raise the total count needed for the rings to 144, 96 of which would be invisible once docked. Acceptable as a compromise, but I'd not go higher than that.
After those ten minutes for the mesh I'd open photoshop and fiddle the texture for ten hours...
But as I said, higher polycounts can make sense if the modules are mostly intended for building. If the built station/vessel is intended to be used with other stuff (say, you use your station as a shipyard), the framerate will soon start to drop through the floor if things start to get large. At least on older machines. People with a powerful GPU can still go pretty wild...
Now that I think about it, it might actually make sense to build in the option to specify a different mesh for the integrated module in the config. Wouldn't be difficult, really.
im thinking about some supplementary panels to be bolted onto the top of a module to provide enough power to host a few crew members (power for critical modules and life support), or simply to run enough systems to keep the station powered and maintaining its own temperature (we dont want our first crew arriving to find that the electrical systems have frozen up and nothing will start up)
That's pretty much the way the ISS did it, really. It was operational and capable of supporting a crew after the first few modules had been bolted together.
On another note, I don't know how long RC3 is going to take. It's not that much work really, but I don't know how much my kids will allow me to work on it. My older one is eating away on my nerves with pretty much constant screaming all day long, and I'm often too exhausted to do anything in the breaks when he's asleep. I've also got sick, athough I'm better now, but we have a last trip to Germany to take care of some stuff tomorrow (with the kids... God help me!) and will be relocating to Bosnia next weekend. It might be that I can get something done next week, as the schedule between Germany and leaving isn't too tight, but I don't know yet...