While having the prisoners doing something for nothing, one would expect the Empire to at least attempt to gain free labor about of their prisons.
Though they would need ships to be moving supplies to the prisons to work on these things, and to move the finished product out to wherever it goes.
Or maybe the design is such that they drop a set of prisons someplace with the building blocks, work a series of prisoners for a number of years until all the components are finished, than exterminate the remaining prisoners. Or move them to a new site, and take the exiting block off with all the completed parts to the major works project (Project Stardust) and have the labor force there use the accumulated parts.
Though, aside from the superlaser, the Death Star should be more or less complete by now. Well, the first one anyway.
Though they would need ships to be moving supplies to the prisons to work on these things, and to move the finished product out to wherever it goes.
Or maybe the design is such that they drop a set of prisons someplace with the building blocks, work a series of prisoners for a number of years until all the components are finished, than exterminate the remaining prisoners. Or move them to a new site, and take the exiting block off with all the completed parts to the major works project (Project Stardust) and have the labor force there use the accumulated parts.
Though, aside from the superlaser, the Death Star should be more or less complete by now. Well, the first one anyway.