7922147
You're not the only one thinking that; in universe, many in the Imperial Military thought the Death Star was a massive waste of resources. Given that sustained turbolaser fire can render a planet lifeless, why would you need a weapon that can blow planets up-planets that may have resources you can exploit?

Although I cannot find any concrete numbers for construction costs, I suspect for the same price as one Death Star you could have a lot of Star Destroyers.

To think, all that money wasted on a giant weapon could’ve been used to better fund the TiE Defender program Grand Admiral Thrawn was working on. The only things that were on Palpatine’s mind were control and power. It’s really sad, The Empire could’ve really brought order to the Galaxy but when you have a Power Hungry Dark Lord running everything, it was doomed to fail no matter what.

7922147
Also on you Hutts vs Empire war tidbit, that is a 100% loss for the Empire
Either they don’t throw enough forces at the Hutts to force a settlement and get bogged down in a war of attrition with the space slugs who’ve been around since forever
Or they throw too many forces at the Hutts and the Rebels take the chance to do some real damage
Either way the Empire loses

7922173
Actually there is an actual cost for building it

7922633
I meant in universe figures. I'm aware the figure in USD is something absurd.

7922642
Oh it is

7924894
Indeed. There are far better uses for the money IMO.

7924929
Yes and that doesn’t include spending 50k on a three minute video of your oc and Charlie

7926787
Ah, a fellow Saberspark viewer.

Shields exist. In fact, this is a literal plot point at the start of Episode V, when the Imperial fleet had entered the Hoth system. Vader had wanted the fleet to be on the outer edge of the system. But Admiral Ozzel had the fleet moved to the vicinity of the planet instead. This allowed the Rebels to spot them and quickly raise the shields. This made any kind of orbital bombardment pretty much useless. This infuriated Vader, and he was executed. Because of this mistake, the Imperials were forced to fight a bloody ground war instead of simply bombing the Rebel base. The Death Star contains enough firepower to overpower any shielding technology including planetary shields.

I disagree with the claim that the Empire would have suffered significant financial damage due to the Death Star. At its height, the Galactic Republic encompassed several million worlds, and the Galactic Empire should have been similar or even larger. Since both Death Stars were covert projects, it should be small enough within the budget that people wouldn't have easily noticed.

Sure, from our contemporary understanding of economics, the death star is an economic drain. But, this is a false equivalency. To illustrate this point, imagine trying to explain the construction of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or the Burj Khalifa to the Roman Empire at its peak. The sheer amount of materials required for such a massive naval vessel or an extremely tall structure would have seemed like fantasy to them.

The technology in Star Wars would have drastically altered the way economies works. In fact, the construction of the second Death Star on Endor demonstrates this. Only raw, unprocessed materials were imported. Furthermore, the DS2 was built on-site and we don't see any industrial facilities within Endor. This means they must possessed mobile rapid-fabrication technology. The Empire actually has that technology such as the World Devastators, which are self-replicating machines or the EVS construction droids.

Speaking of industrial facilities, there's the ring that orbits Kuat. Someone had done a calculation on the ring and they came up like more than 100+ Kilometers big. So building supermassive structures is something that Star Wars can do without giving up a big percentage of their economy.

Although I would agree that the Empire should have diverted to far more useful technologies such as the aforementioned World Devastator, considering that there are torpedo spheres that can punch a hole in a planetary shield and allow a single turbolaser projectile to get in and destroy the planetary shield generators.

As far as blowing up planets for which you can find resources is concerned. There's Grand Admiral Martio Batch, who used the Tarkin (as in the superweapon, not the person) to blow up Aeten II. This would open up an extremely large supply of stygium crystals, which he would use for his cloaking technology.

Yes, it sucks that it's led by a megalomaniacal, power-hungry lunatic. Palpatine only sees the Empire as nothing more than a tool for his endgame. It is a tragedy that there are a few Imperials who have actually come close to overthrowing his rule only to fail. My favorite is Grand Admiral Zaarin, who is also the closest in his coup d'état compared to all the other Imperials.