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So here I was, thinking I could have a nice and relaxing easter. But then the spacechem bug bit me again, so now I just have to write down some assignments to solve when AFK.

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But I can stop anytime I want! Really!

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Oh, I also found this on a penny-arcade thread:

this goddamned game. spend 20-40 minutes finishing a level and think "hey I'm pretty clever" only to load the next one and have the game kick you in the balls and whisper "nope, you're actually dumb as shit" in your ear while you're rolling on the ground

Yeah. That's pretty much sums it up.

[brevs IMGBASE="/img/spacechem/water/" /] [[toc]] [h2 id="sec-intro"]Introduction[/h2]

One of the great things about SpaceChem is that you're completely free in the approach to a solution, so you can let your creativity run wild. At the same time, one of the worst things about Spacechem is that you're completely free in the approach to a solution, so you have to let your creativity run wild. This means that, at first, you might have no idea where to start. And even if you do, the solution you come up with might be, well, let's be generous and say‘not exactly brilliant’. For that reason, I'd like to show a few common patterns that can serve as starting points for efficient solutions.

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For this, I will use the assignment shown in SpaceChem's introduction video, where you use hydrogen (α) and oxygen (β) to create water (ω). This is ideal for two reasons. First, like any good introduction video, it shows the building process and what happens when a command is activated, so you should have some idea of how things work in this game. Second, it's also actually a terribly inefficient solution, so we can try to optimize it :).

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