Modern manufacturing equipment can be very portable. An expedition, spacecraft, or military unit may be able to make many supplies itself, rather than waiting for resupply. In some cases, this even exists in the consumer sector as well, with shops or homes having their own manufacturing facilities. This is most likely in societies with dispersed populations. In highly-populated centers with an excellent transport infrastructure, it will be cheaper to centralize manufacture and distribution. Many of these systems use the cost of goods as a rough indicator of how long it takes to manufacture things. This is an abstraction intended to apply to ordinary products; factor out cost changes from artistic or collector value, nonintrinsic value (e.g., paper currency), age, and source (black market, second-hand, etc.).

These may be used to equip corporate facilities, colonies, or large ships.

This is a production line for assembling a specific product from existing components. Each can assemble one copy of a device every (retail price/200) hours. Computer chips and other small gadgets take longer: multiply time required by 2 if the item’s weight is under 0.1 lbs., by 10 if under 0.01 lbs., by 50 if under 0.001 lbs., etc. The per-item production cost is 50% of the gadget’s retail cost, including parts and labor. (The production line requires a supply of component parts.) The cost of the production line is $10 times the retail cost times the small gadget multiplier above. The production line weighs 1 lb. per $50 the production line costs (minimum 20 times item weight). It uses external power. LC is the same as the item. Big factories may have hundreds or thousands of parallel lines for higher-speed production.

Example: A factory makes a $200 computer chip that weighs 0.005 lbs. A single production line makes one chip every $200 / 200 = 1 hours x 10 = 10 hours, or about 72 chips/month. The production line costs $200 x 10 x 10 = $20,000 and weighs $20,000/$50 = 400 lbs. However, 72 chips/month isn’t many. A proper “computer chip fabricator” complex might have 2,000 production lines running at once.

A production line can be designed that is capable of producing devices without any direct human involvement at all. Necessary raw materials must still be delivered. It requires its own mainframe (or fast microframe) computer of the appropriate TL to supervise. A robotic production line is 10 times the cost and double the weight of a production line, but goods are manufactured for the price of parts alone (20% of cost). Delivery fees for parts may increase this to 30%.

This is a programmable factory capable of making, repairing, or modifying most manufactured goods, assuming parts such as sheet metal, circuit boards, and chemicals are available.

Fabricators incorporate multi-axis lathes, grinders, laser welders, and mills. They create custom parts and assemble pre-built components into a final product inside their manufacturing chamber. They also incorporate rapid-prototyping 3-D printer systems that spray down layers of liquid plastics, epoxies, and metal powders to manufacture solid objects. They can build most solid objects by painting materials, layer by layer, until the object takes form. With appropriate blueprints, a fabricator can build just about anything that fits inside it.

Fabricators can assemble devices one molecular layer at a time. Multiply the time required to fabricate microtech gadgets by 5 if item weight is under 0.1 lb., by 20 for under 0.01 lbs., by 100 for under 0.001 lbs., etc.

Fabricators require databases with the appropriate blueprints. Construction data for controlled devices such as military lasers will be very hard to come by, though a good programmer who is also a technician could write one himself, given enough time.

Fabricators are not as efficient as production lines; they’re designed to produce a wide variety of high-tech items in small quantities. Military units, ships, and small space stations often have “minifacs” to make spare parts and miscellaneous gadgets. Start-up colonies may purchase a few fabricators, and neighborhoods may have them instead of hardware stores.

The GM may judge how long any one item takes to build. Most items can be built in one hour per $50 of value, if the fabricator has access to new, packaged parts for everything it needs. If it is working from scrap, printer cartridges, or salvaged materials, one day per $500 would be more appropriate. Fabricators are not capable of atomic-level assembly of items, and a critical shortage of an element can stop production. A fabricator can start an adventure just by flashing a red light and announcing that it can’t finish the current project until you give it three ounces of selenium and a quarter-carat gem-quality ruby.

The cost of an item would be about 60% of base price if working from specialized parts – or 50% if using generic scrap or printer cartridges. Since a full-size production line produces items for 50% of cost, and merchants buy in bulk at a discount, owning a fabricator does not mean you can get rich quick.

Fabricators also serve as basic equipment for the Machinist skill; larger systems provide a bonus to skill due to their utility in making spare parts.

Industrial Fabricator: A full-size factory; it adds +5 (quality) to Machinist skill. For every $1,000 or 10 lbs. of goods it can fabricate per hour, it is $500,000, 1,000 lbs., industrial power. LC3.

Minifac: A workshop-sized unit. It can fabricate $100 or 2 lb. of product per hour. It adds +3 (quality) to Machinist skill. $50,000, 100 lbs., external power. LC4.

Suitcase Minifac: A portable system that fits in a carrying case, or a large backpack. It adds +1 (quality) to Machinist skill and can fabricate $10 or 0.1 lbs. of product per hour. $5,000, 10 lbs., C/8 hrs. LC2.

All ultra-tech factories incorporate a wide variety of automated, programmable machine tools. However, these are a step up: fabricators that can operate with no human involvement, with all operations and maintenance directed and performed by machines.

Robofacs can reconfigure themselves to manufacture almost any product. The largest robofacs may cover several city blocks, and cost billions – but they make the difference between a civilized planet and a colony world. An unmanned colony expedition carrying genetic material, exo-wombs, and a robofac can develop a world in an astoundingly short time, producing both living things and industry.

Universal robofacs function exactly like universal fabricators, but they are also capable of fully autonomous control with their own Machinist skill.

Industrial Robofac: A full-size factory; it has Machinist-14. For every $1,000 or 10 lbs. of goods it can fabricate per hour, it is $1,000,000, 1,000 lbs., industrial power. LC3.

Robotic Minifac: A workshop-sized unit. It can fabricate $100 or 1 lb. of product per hour. It has Machinist-13. $100,000, 100 lbs., external power. LC4.

Many items in this book are made of memory plastic (including “bioplastic” or “bioplas”) or memory metal. These materials “remember” their shape, giving them remarkable durability. While complex machines and electronics are unlikely to be entirely made out of memory materials, anything that is can flex or even change shape on command.

The instructions to build a gadget. For many commercial goods, blueprints are licensed rather than sold outright. The licensing agreements require royalty payments based on the quantity of goods produced – typically 10%-50% of the base cost of the item. This royalty may exceed 90% on goods whose main cost is their artistic value, information content, or trademark (e.g., designer clothes). LC is equal to that of the item.

3D Blueprints: These are used with fabricators and robofacs (above). They are Complexity 2 for devices costing up to $100, Complexity 3 for devices up to $1,000, etc.

These early industrial nanofactories require highly controlled environments. They use a mix of protein-based nanobots and top-down manufacturing techniques, which is sometimes referred to as “wet” nanotechnology.

Vatfac: This is a large biofactory unit that can grow food, pulp, industrial bacteria, or similar products. It can feed up to 20 people, or half as many if creating a variety of imitation flesh, and other foods. $100,000, 200 tons, external power.

A defining characteristic of biological organisms is the ability to replicate. What if machines also had that capability?

A well-equipped robotic factory can gather resources, fashion parts, and build additional copies of itself at other locations, which can in turn copy themselves, and so on. This “universal constructor” technology can be used in extraterrestrial colonization for manufacture of parts that are too expensive to import. Self-replicating machines are necessary for megaprojects. Operating at maximum theoretical efficiency, it would take 40 to 60 years to perform any planetary-scale project, such as converting a moon or a gas giant into machinery or another structure. In practice, the actual times would likely be far longer due to engineering complications, such as the difficulty of operating in harsh environments like a planetary core; multiply construction times by up to 100 based on these complications.

Because they must devote time to mining or gathering resources, or building tools to make the tools, self-replicating factories are less efficient than ordinary factories that can import parts. Practical systems are often designed with a secondary purpose: after building a certain number of copies, they redesign themselves into a cooperative network of specialized machines and factories, which then begin building some other product.

The possibility of self-replicating robot weapons (or construction systems run amok) may lead to tight regulations. Such systems might be required to have human overrides and supervision.