DSP AAR: Raising a Robot by his Bootstraps

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 Raising a Robot by his Bootstraps

 

The conveyor belts are about the only thing you can build on the water

 

Have you ever heard the phrase of "Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"? It's a fascinating bit demonstrating how languages everywhere are living things. Way back when in the ancient period before computers, there was a sarcastic phase about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It's clearly impossible, and it was first a sarcastic and then legitimate phrase about the difficulty of raising your socioeconomic station. 

Later on it morphs again, primarily with computers. Where does a computer start when it needs to load information, but first needs to load information to load information? Why, it boots up, that's how. Bootstrapping and booting thus became a verb in its own right, referring to something similar but completely different from the original intention. And so I find myself here with another example of bootstrapping, as I need to construct facilities to make materials so that I can make the facilities and so on. I have to start somewhere, so I may as well start by lifting myself up with my non-existent bootstraps. 

You can only burn fuels so quickly. Energy generation is a constant concern for the entire game

Turns out it's easier to raise yourself up with back-mounted thrusters, but still. They are noticeably energy hungry, but convenient for keeping the mech from getting wet, given that I have no boots to protect myself.

All the production items I know of currently I can produce for myself with the Icarus's onboard replicators, but they work too slowly. Far easier to have a mining machine do part of the work, transport the ore with conveyor belts to a smelter, and then from the smelter to fabricating facilities. Even having the facilities build the intermediate products for me is a major time saver, and thus I from all that I'll begin. 

 The Plan

The upper section all deal with upgrades to the mech itself, below that are facilities and drone upgrades

Roughly, my initial plan is to get the basics all squared away. Some buildings to make the intermediates and conveyor belts along with a small section for the initial research.

Initial research involves using intermediates. After the initial stage all research consists of one or more colored cube "matrix" instead to keep things simpler and easier to automate.

While that gets started, I'll then want to build a more long-lasting setup. One I can build on as I go to more efficiently work, rather than having a "spaghetti" set of lines going every which way. By doing that, I can get stacks of the buildings I'll need, negating the need to have Icarus do all the hard creation work so I can focus on constructing more. Research too has been out-sourced to matrix laboratories.

Once that initial framework is complete, I can start working on oil products. Oil itself is a fantastic construction material and I'll use it heavily as my production and the materials I require become more complicated. As well, I'll be able to work on getting the Icarus upgraded, allowing for more basics like increased speeds and energy storage, but also game changers like stronger thrusters for going off planet. Because while Zibel 3 has a good range of materials, it lacks silicon and titanium in any large quantity. I'll need to go off-planet to get those in the numbers I require.

And with both of those materials, I'll be able to construct an interplanetary (and soon interstellar) logistics network. 

Every planet has a summary section like the one to the right. Decent amounts of iron, copper, and stone, with large amounts of coal and oil. For ease of the simulation, all planets are the same size.

First steps first though. Booting this process up properly will take time. I'm glad I have plenty of it, alone out among the stars.

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