What is the end intention? Is this to be in a game, as a looping ambient animation for a prop asset? Assuming this is the intention, I would suggest pre-baking the animation into bones, and using skinning to animate the meshes. This is highly performant, but not interactive. To do this you could create the initial mesh…
Greeble! Well, ... detail at least. These are the highpoly models of construction elements that will help make the spacestation sillhoute look more detailed.