After correcting the computer for the fifth time, Keith started thinking of a way to automatically transport resources from the drills to his base. In fact, he needed the coal that was being extracted from the depths of the mountain to replenish both of his generators without requiring his help. That way, his base could truly be automated with enough energy to last for months, as long as the drills kept on finding fuel.
Two main ideas emerged from his mind to move resources over long distances.
First would consist of making an autonomous vehicle that could travel over long distances. This vehicle would be automatically filled with resources and would only start moving once it was full, or after being emptied at the base.
The second idea was about making a long conveyor belt connecting each and every one of the drills to his base.
Both propositions had pros and cons, the first being the most complex to achieve while being the most efficient resource-wise. However, he was clearly lacking in the articifial intelligence domain and was pretty unsure whether he could actually pull it off or not.
The second would require so much investment in time and resources that he doubted if it would actually be worth it. Though, he already had a rough idea on how to make conveyor belts.
'It might be a good idea to move my generators to where the drills are at.'
Keith was hesitating a lot. Moving the electricity-producing engines to the digging area would require a lot less conveyors to place, and he could install electrical poles to transport energy to his base.
However power would be lost along the way because of the imperfect electrical wire he was making. Factoring the need to supply each conveyor in electricity with this energy loss, it would lead to a lot less efficient solution and less persistent in time than the one using an automated vehicle.
'Seems like there is an obviously better solution. In fact, a vehicle could also be transporting other resources to my base, freeing me from manually going to collect them.'
After thinking about how to make and automated vehicle for a while, Keith realised he still had to make conveyor belts to fill the vehicle in resources.
'Damn, is there no miraculous solutions?' He raged.
Several days later, Keith had successfully designed a conveyor belt that he could easily reproduce. In the meantime, he also prepared a flat area near the digging site where he could install both of his generators.
However, he still had to put electrical poles along the way as well as placing conveyor belts before moving his energy production.
Keith was happily humming while melting metal. When he was designing and producing new devices, he was truly feeling at his place. He never really encountered major flaws in his design and was developing kinda quickly in his eyes.
Though, his crafting process was a really meticulous one. He always started off by designing for several hours, nay days, before making a working prototype. This last step was to show him the limits of his design while letting him make a few adjustments for better efficiency. Afterwards, he always wrote down each process to be followed as well as each quantity of material that was being used for such a design. This resembled some sort of a cooking recipe, and it was very useful to him in reproducing every one of his machines.
With this in mind, it took Keith nearly a week and a half installing both the poles and the conveyors where they belonged.
He was finally ready to move the generators and test whether everything was working as intended. He made a few tests here and there, but it was always nerve-racking when the final version was being tested for the first time.
Because of how heavy the generators were, Keith had to reassemble his buggy for better transportation.
'I love how everything shows some uses even after being abandoned for a while.'
After joining the flat area with his trusty vehucle, Keith proceeded to install a storage area where all the resources would be led to. He also connected the conveyors to this storage facility and took a step back, satisfied and contemplating his work.
'I hope nothing will blow up...' He thought, worried.
Keith put some coal inside the generators to start the whole process and sighted in relief after seeing the conveyor belts moving, albeit slow. After an hour, no piece of resource was being routed to storage and Keith sighted in disappointment.
'It is how it is... I knew I would be lacking power to manage all these conveyors at the same time.'
Fortunately, he planned this power shortage and created two new and improved generators. He did not install them in the first place in case something did not go as planned and needed to make this contraption from scratch again. He has been highly dependent in his energy generation for a while and did not want to lose everything.
After installing them one after the other, with a bit of testing between each process, the resource transportation seemed to go as planned. No power shortage nor resource loss, Keith was relieved.
'Now, the only thing I'm missing is a filter that would allow me to feed the generators with coal and coal only. Let's do this already.'