In this case i made it 5 thrusters, so 22 (5*4+2 for pipes) tiles wide. I just started the build with 20 and then had to extend the front and back by 1 tiles. Fitting everything in 20 tiles makes it sooo long O.O

But i don’t know, maybe even more narrow is possible. I discovered that you don’t need railguns pointing diagonally if you put one pointing to the front right at the edge. That way asteroids will also only be split in front of you, so they can be demolished further by front turrets. If you split them on the side of your ship the splitters can get really fast and move to your ship so quick that they hit you.

After beating the game i went to gleba to explore that beatiful planet and i’m thinking of redesigning the factory with the goal of making it simpler and with a higher throughput less reliant on bots

I sunk a lot of time trying to design a narrow ship that can go really fast through shattered planet. Higher than 270km/s is really tough

Once you have Bots and all things automated to build assembling machines run by bot logistic automated you can leave. You can then build everything remotely. But’s i a good idea to have the base in a “healthy” state and able to provide you with some extra resources in the beginning. For that you of course need a ship/platform that can reliable travel between nauvis and the first planets. That ship can also take you back once have built a rocket silo on the new planet.

Just a PSA, something about

is mentioned in the post. :^)