#613 - Chapter 613 Temporary Transition
The number of drone robots determines the speed of resource gathering and space station construction.
Although the initial waiting time is a bit long, things will be much easier later on.
"Are all six ring modules configured now?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"All configured. Each ring module is equipped with 36 small unmanned transport spacecraft, totaling 216 for all 6 ring modules. Each spacecraft is equipped with 3,000 drone robots, totaling 648,000."
"In addition, the ring modules are also equipped with another 1 million drone robots dedicated to production," Xiaolin reported.
"Excellent!" Dongfang Chen felt very comfortable.
How many drone robots were working when building the ring modules before?
At most, 6,400!
And now, the number of drone robots is close to 2 million, which is incomparable.
It can be said that the production speed of the space station can now be compared with that of the ant robots on the ground.
But the prerequisite is that there is no shortage of materials.
Of course, in the short term, there is still enough space junk in Blue Star's orbit to use.
"Next, if we build the second ring module, how long do you estimate it will take?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"It depends on the type of ring module," Xiaolin replied.
"I plan to use the second ring module as a micro-spacecraft production module," Dongfang Chen replied.
"If it is used as a spacecraft production module, it is estimated that it can be completed in 3 days," Xiaolin replied.
Now that the number of drone robots has increased by more than 300 times, theoretically the construction speed should also increase by more than 300 times.
That is to say, the ring module construction work that originally took 20 months to complete can now be completed in only 2 days.
It's just that the supporting production line inside the equipment production module also needs to be built, so the time will be slightly longer.
But for Dongfang Chen, 3 days is simply too fast, so fast that it's exhilarating.
"Okay, start building!" Dongfang Chen said.
"Commander, you need to determine the technical route before starting," Xiaolin replied.
The so-called technical route of the spacecraft mainly refers to the engine type, material type, weapon type, etc. Different routes require different production lines.
"Okay, what needs to be determined? Let's go through them one by one!" Dongfang Chen was too lazy to read the documents, so he directly asked Xiaolin to report them to him one by one.
"First is the engine type," Xiaolin said.
A list appeared on the screen, listing the available engine types.
According to the different sources of energy, there are currently three available power engines:
Nuclear power engine, crystal core power engine, and solar power engine.
The solar power engine is just a chicken rib and is not considered at all.
In fact, it is a choice between nuclear energy and crystal core bio-energy.
The advantage of nuclear energy is that it does not rely on the ground to supply crystal cores, and the energy is stable and lasting.
But the disadvantages have been mentioned before.
Nuclear energy needs to be converted into electrical energy before it can be used.
The use of electrical energy is very complex, requiring complicated conversion circuits and electronic components. These things have low conversion rates, high energy consumption, high heat generation, and high failure rates, making them a disaster to use.
The space environment is more harsh and complex than the ground, and electronic components are very prone to failure and damage.
In addition, the structure is complex. Each time a function is added to the spacecraft, a large number of circuits and components need to be added. The more components, the higher the probability of failure, which is a vicious cycle.
So, although nuclear energy is good, it is troublesome to use.
Crystal cores do not have these problems, but the only thing is that they need to be supplied from the ground.
But now the remnants of Sirius have not been eliminated, and the existence of the space station cannot be exposed.
Therefore, using crystal cores is very risky.
Some people may wonder, the space station is exposed in space. Since the remnants of Sirius are monitoring Blue Star from the moon, why can't they find it?
This issue has been mentioned before. The remnants of Sirius do not monitor Blue Star through their eyes, but through the Mani sect members on the ground.
Mengka mentioned that the difference between Mani sect members and other people is that their bodies release a kind of electromagnetic wave to the outside world. The remnants of Sirius can grasp the situation on the ground by receiving these electromagnetic waves.
That is to say, the cognition of Sirius will not exceed the sum of the cognition of the Mani sect members on the ground.
The intelligence that the Mani sect members do not know, the remnants of Sirius do not know.
Therefore, as long as Dongfang Chen does not directly establish contact with the space station and does not frequently transport materials to space, no one will find out.
Now it seems that both nuclear power engines and crystal core power engines have obvious drawbacks.
This is a bit embarrassing.
"Ah! It would be great if Zhenjing could be used now," Dongfang Chen sighed.
Now he has no choice. If Zhenjing wants to be used, a light crystal panel charging station must be built in near-solar orbit.
But to build a charging station near the solar orbit, a batch of spacecraft must be manufactured first.
So, his only option now is to temporarily use nuclear energy as a transition.
Only after Zhenjing and light crystal panels are transported to the space station and a charging station is successfully built can practical spacecraft be manufactured.
