There are other references scattered throughout the text to there being 36 decks in the Core,
I did an Amazon Search Inside the Book and found only one reference on page 96 to Level 36 of an unspecified area (in addition to 1, 3, 6, 11, 15, 24 and 30) containing “atmospheric chemistry subsystems and airflow handlers”. This could easily be two levels below “all 34 levels of the Station Core” (p. 110) and technically not part of the Core itself.
According to “Civil Defense” (DS9), Level 34 features control junctions for the laser fusion initiator, which puts them close to the bottom if not necessarily on the lowest central level.
Not so sure about the Pylons yet...
Six pylons with 252 levels total implies 42 per each upper or lower pylon, though Doug Drexler’s cutaway suggests there should be more assuming even spacing throughout. What we know from “Crossfire” (DS9) is that Level 41 was on the way of a turbolift returning to the Docking Ring, so even 42 would be fine.
Well the DS9 Tech manual is usually WAY WRONG in almost all respect, but can be used as a good starting point.
That’s a misconception based on the likelyhood that many, if not most readers were rather looking for definitive answers on the
Defiant class, the other Starfleet and alien classes, which was difficult since they’d been created by various designers, many of whom would only take them as far as sketches and leave the remainder for the visual effects and graphics artists to develop independently as needed, while at the same time writers would scatter odd references which fans would then collect on websites.
Rick Sternbach finalized concepts, drew construction plans and interior layout for the DS9 station, aside from designing the
Danube-class runabout with assistance from Jim Martin and drawing its own miniature blueprints, so there is little reason to dispute the bulk of the material, while the rest is either controversial to this day or can be reconciled with other sources.
We might just as well decide upon whatever a figure of authority says, then, because there's no in-universe reality to lend us support...
On the other hand, the intended in-universe visual reality was that DS9 measure 5,280 feet in diameter (as seen repeatedly in VFX charts and comments), which is what the viewer would acquire a sense for without second-guessing size relationships in the individual shots, so the “real” station might easily have proportions that are not at all a match for the six-foot miniature, which in the end was only a tool used to create the desired shots.
I remember when I first saw a bunch of the (horribly drawn) ship orthos that were included in that book that apparently represented the various Frankenfleet kitbashes that appeared in the background and thought
!! Those can't be right
It turned out they needed redrawing and finessing based on actual model photos that were released later, but as with station proportions, the viewer wasn’t supposed to look that closely. It would have been better to omit those ships since in the end the representative fleet became the classic models that ended up in CGI.
