Chapter 249: Industry 2.0
With immense excitement, Shen Quan boarded his mining vessel.
He mimicked a habit brought by the players, hanging a piece of high-purity iron ore from Red Iron Town above the driver's seat.
He hoped this mascot, representing his hometown, would bring him good luck, allow him to collect more rare earth ores, and contribute more to the construction of his homeland.
"Take off when you're ready!"
Black Smoke, who was leading the team, gave the order.
All mining vessels successively activated their Mass Effect Zero Element Furnaces, reducing their relative mass from just over 2,000 tons to approximately 30 tons.
Afterward, propelled by four disproportionately small rocket engines at the bottom of the vessels, they successfully ascended.
Without the Zero Element Furnace, the mining vessels' takeoff would be very difficult, not only requiring additional booster rockets but also consuming nuclear fuel at hundreds of times the rate.
Now, although the vessel swayed noticeably during ascent due to being a second-hand vessel, the overall impression was like an inflated airship, directly "floating" into the sky, exceptionally light.
It made one marvel at the wonders of zero element physics.
Soon after, Black Smoke and several other accompanying players led the other five mining vessels, entirely controlled by Red Iron Town natives, to the planetary synchronous orbit, passing by Cangyuan's "space construction site" along the way.
After many days, Shen Quan could finally look down upon his homeland from space again.
But this time, what caught his eye the most was no longer the pale yellowish-green planet, but the more than 200 massive parabolic solar reflective membranes in orbit.
These reflective membranes were all dragged by players in newly purchased cargo vessels from cangyuan one, located in the asteroid belt.
Each one was one square kilometer in size and weighed over 100 tons.
Industrial drones were installing miniature Hall effect thrusters onto the carbon nanotube frameworks of the reflective membranes, so they could constantly adjust their direction, always face the sun, and counteract orbital shifts caused by solar radiation pressure.
After that, by simply placing a thermoelectric conversion power generation unit at the focal point of the reflection, over 200 orbital solar power stations, requiring no fuel yet capable of rivaling nuclear power plants in output, would be completed.
The primary beneficiaries of these solar power stations were the newly constructed space dockyards.
Shen Quan saw that not far from the power stations, six space dockyards, already nearing completion, were arranged in a hexagonal prism shape in three-dimensional space, with their long sides parallel to each other, forming a structure more robust than themselves.
This way, by simply expanding and extending parts of the side structures of the six small dockyards later on, the enclosed central area would naturally form a large dockyard, combining with the surrounding small dockyards to create a honeycomb-shaped shipbuilding complex.
This idea came from Executive Officer himself.
In addition to minimizing material usage and construction time, this honeycomb structure also allowed all dockyards within the same complex to combine into an organic whole.
Within the complex, AI was responsible for unified task assignment and coordination of processes, minimizing the idle time of workers and industrial drones, as well as travel time, achieving pulsed production similar to an assembly line, increasing productivity by about 15%.
After all, a capitalist by nature, he could not bear to see his employees' enthusiasm not being released in a timely manner into the work they loved, whether they were carbon-based or silicon-based employees.
The newly acquired giant 3D printer has now also been integrated into the honeycomb shipyard.
Its appearance was completely different from the previous box-type printer, consisting of four identical printing vessels, each about 60 meters long.
The front half of the vessel was the cockpit, and a black technology atomic spray gun with a volume similar to a medium-sized bus.
The middle part contained the reactor and nuclear fuel compartment, which needed to be installed by the players themselves.
The rear half consisted of the material decomposition compartment, raw material compartment, and the propulsion engine, which also needed to be installed by the players.
When working, the four printing vessels simultaneously "sprayed" from four different spatial directions, jointly shaping material entities of any form.
Lu Yuan strongly suspected that this so-called "printer" was actually a standardized engineering vessel from Cangyuan's most prosperous period, likely representing the cutting-edge technology around 2900.
Engineer players, after practical operation, reported the powerful efficiency of this 3D printing vessel to the Executive Officer.
The facts far exceeded Lu Yuan's initial expectations: with the dockyard providing uninterrupted pre-processed materials, it could print a 3-meter long, approximately 180-ton "Qinling" hull per hour, completing a full warship in three days.
This speed was enough to make any Star Alliance military enterprise spit blood on the spot!
In other words, with the addition of the giant 3D printer, the large dockyard in the center of the shipbuilding complex could operate at approximately 12 times its normal efficiency.
If every dockyard could be equipped with such a printer in the future, it would be unimaginable!
This was not a fantasy, as the giant 3D printer's product size was unlimited, meaning it could obviously print and replicate itself!
"Everyone, record the route. We will pass by here again on our return and unload directly here."
Black Smoke picked up the communicator and shouted to the other mining vessels.
"Not returning to the surface?"
Someone asked.
"No, not returning. The orbital super factory will be completed soon. By then, ores collected in space will be processed directly in space, saving the trouble of entering and exiting the planet's gravity well."
"I see..."
"Everyone can look to the right; our merchant fleet has already arrived."
Shen Quan quickly looked to the right and indeed saw a particularly bright group of "stars."
That was the light emitted by the vessels' engines.
Many merchant vessel engines were facing forward, decelerating to berth in Li Star orbit!
Merchant vessels responsible for transporting purchased goods to Cangyuan would first gather at New Hope Space Station, and once a certain quantity accumulated, they would be escorted by a unified escort fleet.
This trip, they brought more mining vessels and cargo vessels, as well as standard modular components for building space stations and space factories.
In addition, several Engineer clans also came along.
The big merchant Xiu introduced several of the most reputable clans in the Star Alliance to the Executive Officer. They first underwent scanning by Cangyuan to confirm they carried no dangerous items and that their engineering equipment had sufficient construction capabilities.
Afterward, they passed psychological evaluations written by the players, and finally, happily signed contracts.
These clans, like the Free Trade Alliance, were cosmic nomads, with no fixed settlements. They drifted for generations in their engineering vessels, selling their skills for a living, and were very happy to see a power willing to provide long-term shelter and protection, and pay substantial wages.
They would cooperate with the Red Iron Town people to jointly develop the mineral resources under the Glass District. Anya's construction team also came along, responsible for building the space station and factory in orbit, and also helping with urban construction on the ground.
When these merchant fleets left again, they would, as usual, take a massive amount of crude oil from Li Star.
At the same time, Cangyuan would also import large quantities of elemental carbon and carbon fiber from New Hope Space Station, maintaining a relatively healthy trade balance.
The essence of this trade was to pay for transportation and processing, purchasing New Hope Space Station's production capacity to solve the current problem of insufficient carbon element processing capabilities and meet the material needs for fleet construction.
This was also the fundamental reason Lu Yuan was eager to establish trade routes.
Relying solely on self-sufficiency and closed-door manufacturing would always have a ceiling on production increase; one must be good at leveraging external forces!
"The entire Li Star is turning into a massive construction site—"
Shen Quan sighed, feeling the vigorous power brought by grand infrastructure projects.
The mining vessels advanced, arriving at the asteroid belt three days later.
Under Black Smoke's command, they first used the large scanner "personally invented" by Executive Officer to detect the composition of asteroids, finding those rich in rare earths. Then they approached, stopping about 1 kilometer away, maintaining relative stillness with the celestial body.
After stabilizing the vessel, Shen Quan, following what he had learned in the ground simulation program, entered a series of commands on the control panel, opening the hatches on both sides of the mining vessel.
A large group of industrial drones then flew out of the cabin, began drilling into the asteroid's surface, then inserted explosives, and returned the same way.
Boom!
Although there was no sound in space, the mining vessel artificially simulated an explosion sound to prevent mining personnel from being distracted or misjudging.
With repeated drilling and detonation, the 200-meter diameter asteroid gradually shattered.
The scanner was activated again, selecting fragments rich in target minerals, and then workers on the mining vessel controlled drones to timely retrieve the blasted fragments back into the mining vessel.
Shen Quan operated with great enjoyment.
He found that space mining was actually much easier than ground mining.
There was no gravity in space, so there were naturally no "digging down" and "lifting up" processes, which were usually time-consuming and labor-intensive, nor was there any need to consider supporting shafts.
The mining logic here was completely different, leaving only the rather stress-relieving simple steps of "explosion," "scanning," and "picking up." Two days later, mining was successfully completed.
All 6 mining vessels were filled, cumulatively yielding over 5,000 tons of ore, including approximately 80 tons of rare earth metals, and at least 3,000 tons of iron, and hundreds of tons of nickel and cadmium.
This was enough to build the electromagnetic railgun superconducting capacitors for two "Qinling" class frigates.
If cost was not considered and only the absolute rate of collection was, space mining was indeed no less efficient than ground mining.
And rapid development was what Cangyuan pursued, so cost requirements could be appropriately relaxed.
Upon returning, Shen Quan saw that the space station and super factory in orbit were already more than halfway completed.
Large numbers of nuclear rocket transport sections were neatly arranged to the side, and industrial drones busily shuttled back and forth, taking out production lines manufactured on the ground and installing them into the factory buildings of the orbital super factory.
This efficiency greatly shocked Anya's construction team; Cangyuan's industrial drones were agile and versatile, appearing as full-fledged black technology products in their eyes.
"Too fast! It really changes every day!"