After temporarily resolving the Geonosian rebellion, the problems with the DS-1 battle station were far from fully solved. Or rather, the Geonosians' problem had only been a trivial one.
The greatest problem facing the DS-1 battle station was secrecy.
Many people opposed the project, yet for it to proceed smoothly, an unimaginably vast amount of funding and materials had to be raised.
Take Durasteel, the primary structural material for the DS-1. It was a high-strength alloy steel. Though its refining technology was mature, producing enough for a spherical space station 160 kilometers in diameter still exceeded the Galactic Empire's existing Durasteel output.
In other words, to meet the DS-1's construction needs, the Galactic Empire had to more than triple its Durasteel production. That meant more factories, more mining zones, more smelters—or, in other words, greater financial investment.
The largest engineering mishap occurred when the DS-1 arrived in a secret region of space within the Tarasiis system and began construction. To save on transport and extraction costs, Orson Krennic ordered them to use local materials. The Galactic Empire's engineering teams dragged hundreds of asteroids from the Tarasiis system to the construction site, crushed them on-site, and began smelting Durasteel from the raw metals within.
After several months of work, they discovered to their dismay that the metal deposits produced in the Tarasiis system could not be refined into Durasteel. Those months of labor had all been wasted, and after all that effort, they still had no choice but to ship materials in from elsewhere.
This meant that even the DS-1's raw materials had to be transported all over the Milky Way Galaxy. Worse still, the Rebel Alliance had been exceptionally active during this period. Many construction materials were intercepted or destroyed by the Rebel Alliance en route, causing severe losses.
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