Nanotechnology Assembler
From SSNTWiki
[edit] Gameplay Information
Location: Engineering Slot
Faction: Order, Consortium, Singularity
Gameplay Discussion:
Nanotechnology Assembler serves as engineering facilities for the faction that operates them. They are not very different from other types of engineering systems.
Nanotechnology assembler is a requirement for some units of the consortium faction.
[edit] Mathematics and Modeling Discussion
Equations and concept TBA
See Fourier Transform [1]
[edit] Lore Discussion
The Nanotechnology Assembler is a biologically inspired engineering system. Instead of fabricating parts from an assembly line, and assemble the parts using other assembly lines, the NTA creates entire assemblies at once using large number of microscopic self-replicating devices. These machines, often called “Nantes” are usually fabricated en mass using feeder material and small amount of machines called not unlike cell-line amplification.
The Assembler itself is nothing more then a glorified radio wave emitter. The location of each voxel in a volume is defined using amplitude, frequency and phase. This is the principle of the MRI machine working in reverse.
Once the Nanites received the radio waves, they adjust their operation parameters in a preprogrammed sequence according to their location in the volume and the state of adjacent Nanites not unlike the gene expression regulation of biological organisms. Because every point in a three dimensional space is uniquely identified by amplitude, frequency and phase, these assemblers are only limited by the size and capability of the Nanites they use.
Although Nanotechnology Assemblers could create devices of nearly arbitrary complexity, it’s not superior in term of throughput to industrial methods because it cannot be optimized to produce common parts quickly. Only civilizations operating very complex devices have the need for such convoluted techniques.
As an anonymous member of the consortium pointed out “Complexity is often the excuse for the lack of elegance”.
