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But wouldn't the improved manufacturing techniques be offset by increasing complexity of high tech items? I mean - better tools mostly allow making simple items faster. Or large batches of more complex items. I.e. - using modern tools to make a single assault rifle would probably take much more time than it took to make a musket with more primitive tools. Sure, *if* we set up a robotic assembly line we can make 100 ARs in the time it takes to hand-craft a single one. But that's not the scale Piratez operate on.
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It's something of an S curve if we take our history as an example. Hand tools and manual power, time per item is very high as well as enforcing a physical limit on number of participants at any given step. (This is the start of play with still and extractor)
Simple power assistants like drill presses or lathes allow faster repetition as long as the task is the same. But if you change the needed task or product, frequently you need a whole new power tool or even a whole new line of tools. Time is down as long as you don't change the product. And these first stage assistants are both hazardous and prone to frequent breakdowns which take there own time.
The next stage is early/crude electronics. Maybe your tools have interchangeable parts now and changing tasks is faster. But time has gone way up in the crafting of your end product because you, as yet, don't have the precision automated means for circuit building, or things like the final fitting of parts. That's still by hand and the complexity of the final object is way up and the tolerances are exacting. Assembly line methods help but there is still a bottle neck in final fitting/assembly. Also usually this period sees a lot of wasted time/rejected parts due the exacting tolerances just to make the end product work. (This is about the in game workshop.)
Then we move on to full automation. Your tools are custom made for each product which is expensive and time consuming, but once you have the line tooled up it can run out as much as you want so long as the machines keep working and you have materials to supply. Handful of people necessary once everything is set up. Overall time is way down cause the machines go from raw feedstock to fully finished product in a matter of hours, but there is still the toolup problem.
Next is something we are only just now ourselves really exploring, fully printed final products. Provide a machine a blueprint and the right materials and it can build you the parts for anything, with minuscule and repeatable tolerances, beyond what the eye can perceive. Even the machines making parts for more of themselves. Toolup is not really much of a problem anymore since your down to a single manufacturing tool and a handful of assembly tools(maybe even none if your clever.) But a new problem has a shown up. Your toolset is now so precise and fast that a single instruction error can not only ruin the product but the tool itself before you even notice. or maybe its a tiny error, but still one that renders all the output nonfunctional. So a lot of time making sure the instructions are flawless. But total time has dropped again because most the investment is in the planning step. And so long as you don't misplace that instruction set your good to go at any point in the future. (This is about industrial printer.)
The next stage is where you hand the industrialized printer tech to an AI and tell it you want some amount of something and give it a room and feedstocks and a handful of printers and say you will be back Tuesday. The AI is loads faster working and can build the whole assembly line and tools it needs while blueprinting its parts. Only the briefest supervision to refill the feedstocks and make sure the end result hasn't been corrupted by some error or bias in the AI. The only worker time investment left is making the AI and that very first printer. (This is the factory+printer in game, and presumably something like the capabilities of the Stellar empire. Though they dont seem to ever utilize unshackled AI so there still not quite the full potential of this stage utilized.)
The final stage of production is the star trek replicator, input
any raw material+sufficient energy, make a request of your AI, and there you have anything from a cup of tea to a planet complete with an ecosytem and its own civilizations. Your only limits are the available resources and the computational power available. The genie is out of the bottle, be careful what you ask for.
