"Boss Andy, are we really stopping?"
Bauer held a newly trimmed circuit board, his face full of reluctance.
"We just got this line smoothed out a couple of days ago, the yield rate just went up, and we can churn out one small balloon a day. If we stop now, we'll have to recalibrate everything when we restart."
"Stop," Andy's voice was firm. "The current thirty base stations are enough. They keep a crystal-clear eye on the surrounding area. Any further, and we don't have the manpower to manage it anyway. It's overcapacity, Bauer."
Bauer scratched his head. Though he felt it was a pity, he didn't dare argue and turned back to work.
The faint blue light from the holographic projection table reflected onto Andy's expressionless metal face. The airspace map within a 500-kilometer radius around Fort Harrison was completely lit up, with thirty green light dots slowly moving on their designated orbits.
Through these eyes, Andy could clearly see up to 430 kilometers south of Fort Harrison. Truth be told, this surveillance network was practically perfect. But Andy's finger hovered over the console, and he ultimately pressed a red button.
Production Directive: Abort.
Target Project: Canopy-1 Low-Orbit Base Station (Subsequent Batches).
Status: Assembly Line Shutdown / Resource Reallocation.
With the command issued, an assembly line in Sector C dedicated to assembling the small balloons came to a halt. The red shutdown indicator light glowed, and several servitors responsible for the line stood blankly in place, their mechanical arms hanging mid-air, looking somewhat comical.
Andy had cut the capacity of one small balloon a day. The underlying reason was both simple and deeply frustrating.
No people.
There were truly no people left.
Andy was currently facing a bottleneck that every factory-building game player encounters in the early stages—and the most maddening one. The population dividend had run out!
Deep Space Industries currently had a total registered population of just 682 people, including the drifters they had taken in along the way. This number sounded decent enough; after all, in many wasteland stories, a few hundred people constituted a significant settlement.
But the problem was, Andy wasn't running a settlement; he was running heavy industry.
Among these 682 people, some had to operate the Matter-Molecular Reconstructor and the Xenos Tech Analysis Station—two massive, resource-devouring beasts. Some had to maintain the precision machining center, mine the surrounding auxiliary mineral deposits, and drive dozens of transport vehicles for logistics. A portion also had to be assigned to security, acting as an armed force to defend the base. In some cases, people even had to cook, unclog pipes, and clean up.
Andy's logistical and planning capabilities were top-tier. Relying on the super-computing power of an Iron Men core, he could maximize the value of every single bit of labor. He implemented three shifts, more work for more pay, extra contributions, and made everyone a soldier.
But this still couldn't change one hard fact: they were shorthanded. Even with the assistance of many automated drones, certain critical positions still absolutely required humans.
Drones could haul cargo, but they couldn't understand the workarounds needed for complex assembly blueprints.
Drones could patrol, but they couldn't handle sudden production hiccups.
The capacity growth curve, after experiencing an explosive spike in the first two months, had now irrevocably flattened into a rigid horizontal line. At certain times, it even dipped due to worker fatigue and illness.
Andy sat in his wide command chair, staring at the stagnant curve, a sharp wave of anxiety rising in his logic core. This kind of anxiety was pure torture for a factory-building player. He began to frantically miss his past life playing virtual ascension games.
Damn, that feeling was so satisfying!
Click virtual ascension, and as long as there was enough power, click colonize, and the population would instantly fill the entire planet! No need to wait for them to grow up, no need to build houses for them, no need to worry about them getting sick or throwing tantrums! They were born to work, born as max-level skilled laborers! Back then, production capacity exploded exponentially, technology trees were climbed in seconds, and fleets were launched like dropping dumplings into boiling water!
How could it be like this now?
"Too slow... too slow..." Andy couldn't help but mutter to himself.
At the current rate, gathering enough resources to build a single battlecruiser would take at least a dozen years. While Andy wasn't entirely panicking, he didn't want to drag it out that long.
"Six," Andy patched into the internal line. "Pull up the personnel files. I want to see the latest detailed data."
"Received."
Charts and pie graphs popped up on the holographic screen. Andy glanced at them, and his heart sank even further.
Total Population: 682 people.
Male: 650 people.
Female: 32 people.
Elderly, Weak, Sick, Disabled (Incomplete Labor Force): 0 people (All have regained labor capacity through prosthetic modification or medical treatment).
Staring at the glaring 20:1 male-to-female ratio, Andy fell into a long silence.
They had fought their way out of the Underhive of Foundry No. 7. In that harsh environment where gangs ran rampant and people died daily, survival was inherently much harder for women than for men. Aside from a very small number of strong-willed women like Jessia, or those with highly specific survival skills, most lower-class women had long since become casualties.
Those who could follow Andy all the way from the Underhive to the orbital shipyard, and then survive a crash landing onto this wasteland planet, were almost entirely burly, strong men who had blood on their hands. This resulted in the extremely warped population structure Deep Space Industries currently had.
"Having children?"
"Have a damn egg!"
The moment the thought popped into Andy's mind, he ruthlessly crushed it. Expecting these thirty-two women to shoulder the heavy burden of population reproduction? This wasn't even a question of human rights or ethics; this was a daydream!
Even if they started forced matching right now, and even if everyone was willing to give birth, it would still take ten months of pregnancy, right? And what happens after they are born? They have to be raised, right? They have to be educated, right? By the time this batch of newborns could enter the factory to turn screws or don exoskeletons to fight, it would be at least fifteen years later.
Fifteen years!
In this godforsaken Warhammer universe, let alone fifteen years, nobody knew how badly the situation would rot in just fifteen months! The so-called "natural population growth" was an absolute interstellar joke to the current Deep Space Industries.
Frustrated, Andy closed the personnel files, stood up, and paced back and forth in the command center. His metal feet thudded heavily against the floor. He felt he needed a method to acquire a large population rapidly.
"Sisyphron, come to the workshop," Andy said into the communicator.
Ten minutes later, Sisyphron arrived.
Since coming to Fort Harrison, this former gang boss had been living quite comfortably. He was still holding half a bottle of red wine, clearly enjoying a rare moment of leisure. There was no exploitation by Helios here, no threat from Nurgle worshipers. Just managing resource distribution every day earned him top-tier treatment. To him, this was already paradise.
"Andy, what do you need us for?" Sisyphron found a comfortable position to sit down and asked with a smile. "Are we opening a new project? What is it this time? A photoelectric conversion center?"
Andy pointed to the flattening production capacity curve on the screen.
"Look at this," Andy's voice was flat. "Our growth is about to stagnate."
Sisyphron glanced at it and shrugged indifferently. "If it stagnates, it stagnates. Andy, we have to learn to be content."
Sisyphron swirled his wine glass. "Do you know where we are? We are in Zais, on the edge of the Heretic Stars, on a wasteland planet full of scavengers and bandits. We managed to build such a massive base within a short three months, complete with independent power, water, and a military-industrial system. This is already a miracle. Even if we do absolutely nothing from now on, relying solely on our current inventory and capacity, as long as we keep a low profile, we'll be the biggest super-warlord on this planet in a dozen years. We have everything we want. Why force ourselves to chase exponential growth?"
Sisyphron represented the mindset of most normal people—be content with modest wealth, play it safe. Since they had already gained a foothold in this chaotic world, why not enjoy life and develop slowly?
As long as they didn't court death, Deep Space Industries could indeed live very comfortably. But Andy didn't think that way.
"A dozen years?" Andy looked at Sisyphron, the blue light in his electronic eyes somewhat piercing. "Sisyphron, do you think we have a dozen years? Do you think we're safe just because we escaped Foundry No. 7? I've got to give you a reality check. Don't go thinking the Koronus Expanse is some kind of paradise. Those bandits driving land-behemoths around robbing people, those Dark Eldar who shot down the New Horizon before... Do you think they will just let us peacefully lay low for a dozen years?"
Andy continued to explain, "The current stability is an illusion. If we can't pull a fleet together before the real threats arrive, when disaster strikes, this little inheritance of ours won't even make a splash."
Sisyphron was startled by Andy's words, spilling a bit of his wine. He opened his mouth to argue but didn't know what to say. After all, every single one of Andy's previous judgments had been frighteningly accurate, whether it was the prediction about Helios or the warning about the Tyranid invasion.
"Then... what do you want to do?" Sisyphron asked weakly.
Andy didn't answer directly but looked at Six. "Six, give me a data model. If we maintain the status quo, relying solely on internal potential and natural reproduction, how long will it take us to build a fully manned battlecruiser?"
Six's single eye flickered, having clearly calculated this long ago.
Current Parameters: Capacity growth rate and human resource attrition rate optimized. No major accidents. Raw material supply sufficient.
Estimated Time Required: 18 years.
Sisyphron fell silent.
"And what if we can solve the labor issue?" Andy pressed further. "What if I give you five thousand people? Five thousand skilled workers."
Six provided a new figure.
Updated Parameters: +5,000 skilled laborers.
Estimated Time Required: 1 year.
From eighteen years to one year. The magic of human resources and the terrifying nature of economies of scale were fully on display here.
"Do you see it now?" Andy pointed at the contrast between the two numbers. "This is the reality we must face. The upcoming bottleneck we are about to confront is people. We lack people—a massive amount of people. And we... can't give birth to them ourselves."