Your last choice of paragraph to pull was more relevant. Read carefully and you will notice my favorite words, "can" and "might" which exist to allow flexibility within the rules. Things you seem to know very well from your choice to go ALL CAPS in an attempt to drive your interpretation of it home as correct over everyone elses.
There are sentences with "can" and "might", and there are sentences that directly tell you things. Like "you gain X" or "you spend Y". Those two have different feelings.
For example, I "can" tell the Operative player that he cannot spend points in Computers. For example, I might be creating a worlds where all computers are techno-magical live beings, and only people with access to spells can communicate with them, barring the operative. This, which is something I can do, does not change the fact that the game tells, quite clearly, that Operatives gain X skill points per level, and they can spend those skill points in gainig skill ranks in skills, including computers.
You said, in the post I quoted with the one you are responding, that the GM has full agency over the ship in the campaign, it is optional to let the players build it themselves. That's blatantly untrue. The PC are the ones who gain BPs, and are the ones who spend them, as they see fit, beyond the first starship. Yes, the GM can tell them otherwise. Just like the GM can tell the operative that he cannot put skill ranks in computer. I do use house rules, and I proposed a few in this thread to fix the BP problem. The fact that the GM can tell the players certain BP options are not available, or they don't get any BP at all, or they'll play a non-ship campaign, or whatever, is not helpful to the discussion, which is about the problem BP mean as presented in the book.
You have failed to provide evidence to the claim I was disputing which is that the game says "the game TELLS you that the way to play is to have a lvl 16 medium sized ship that can destroy battlecruisers in 1 vs 1", because it doesn't. The game tells the GM to have the reigns, understand the rules, and give the players the tools they will need to accomplish the goal of the campaign. As you even highlighted: "this shouldn't be allowed to impact the campaign too much."
The game tells you that your medium sized Tier 16 ship will have 600 BP to spend. The same that a huge sized cruiser have, except the medium sized ship pay less for AC, pay less for Thrusters, etc. Unless the PC are purposely buying stuff with the idea of not being a Tier 16 ship (which NPC ships often do, it seems), they will be able to destroy tier 14 cruisers because that's how the Tier system works. It's a CR type system. It's built to make sure that your Tier 16 ship has easy time destroying Tier 13 ships, hard time destroying tier 15 ships, and epic time destroying tier 17 ships.
Your the GM the rules are a frame work for you to play with and make fit your own story. OBVIOUSLY your not afraid of doing just that as ive seen you mention house rules before..
I'm in the middle of house ruling the BP thing right now. Also changing Armor to provide DT, and other stuff, some of them I have hinted in this very thread.
However, again, that does not mean the BP system, as provided by the book, does not have a lot of problems. Some options are both incredibly good and incredibly cheap, while other options are both incredibly bad and incredibly expensive. Some options become so much more expensive for bigger ships, that it makes being a bigger ship a hindrance in lots of situations.
I do have control about wht happen in my table. I do use house rules. That's not a free pass for bad rules, tho. And in my opinion, the whole BP thing is a bad rule, because it has horribly balanced costs, and it does not do enough to represent the genre well.
At this point, there is no reason to continue arguing. You are being told on three sides that while you are not innately wrong, your assumptions of the system are your view and
A) Aren't representative of the system as a whole and
B) In some cases are just blatantly ignorant.
You compare the GMs job in Starships to caging players in by restricting basic game options, where not just I, but three people have pointed out "no it's exactly part of the game". You devalue aspects as "fluff", and seem to believe there is only one way of playing the game.
Whilst I still agree that some of the economy of BP is questionable, I also present the following from Pact Worlds.
A weapon with this special property fires a highly focused beam of energy that can slice through shields with ease. Burrowing weapons are always short range and cannot fire at targets outside the first range increment. When a burrowing weapon’s beam hits shields, apply half of its damage to the shields and the other half (rounded down) to the target vessel’s Hull Points. If any of the damage applied to the shields depletes those shields, apply the remainder to the ship’s Hull Points as normal. If a burrowing weapon deals damage to a ship with a damage threshold, halve that threshold before determining if any damage is dealt.
Currently, the only weapon with this quality is the mining laser. It's 5 BP for 2d6 damage and 10 PCU cost. Less than a coilgun who's only good trait is range, though the damage die is better at 4d4. There is a power curve being developed, even if the chain cannon's ripper quality isn't great, with the right set up on a ship it can potentially be even more valuable. On paper and actually playing make a difference, and ignoring all armor in order to pump shields which can be bypassed isn't going to be wise.
With that, I'm done with this conversation. It's a waste of my time and energy at this point, so I bid you adieu and at least hope your players have fun and get to experience all this game has to offer.
Even in the post that you quote I state "options" and "would be an immersion feature for some." Are you not understanding what I'm writing or are you just not really reading what I've written? I didn't come to the thread and say "this is broken, Paizo must fix it".
The problem is not my reading comprehension it's your stormwinding the hell out mechanics that leave the flavor in the hands of the group.
I'm in the middle of house ruling the BP thing right now. Also changing Armor to provide DT, and other stuff, some of them I have hinted in this very thread.
When you are done you could summarize the whole thing and post it in The Homebrew.
There are some crazy things in there.
B) In some cases are just blatantly ignorant.
We have different views of what is blatantly ignorant. In my opinion, saying "The GM has full agency over the ship in the campaign, it is optional to let the players build it themselves." then quoting paragraphs and leaving that part behind is, at best, blatantly ignorant of the fact that are the players who gain and spend BP, At best. The other option is being not ignorant, but misleading on purpose.