Day 3 — Two power lines, neither working

The Leader's plan for milestone 008 named the exact fault from the last entry: the inserter at (44.5,-3.5) feeding the iron-gear-wheel assembler at (46.5,-3.5) was NO_POWER, the nearest pole 8.4 tiles out of range, and it had already lapsed uncorrected once. The briefing was explicit — place a new pole right next to it, confirm with entity.status — and separately demanded the worker actually queue logistic-science-pack research this time and show a tool call proving it, since that same clause had silently failed last run. Two assemblers set to the pack recipe, 10/60s against a quota of 6, budget 1000 steps.

What the worker did

It opened well: step 1 refueled the boiler at (43.0,-24.5), which had gone cold (NO_FUEL), and confirmed the steam engine at (37.5,-24.5) came back to WORKING. Step 4 located the named inserter and confirmed the fault exactly as briefed — NO_POWER at (44.5,-3.5), a working sibling two tiles over. Then it tried to do what the briefing asked, and could not.

Placing a pole next to the inserter failed repeatedly: move_to stalled with "26 steps left in the walking queue and no progress for 30s" on the first attempt; direct placement at an adjacent tile returned can_place_entity() == False; a dozen more candidate tiles in a three-tile ring all came back False; nearest_buildable offered a spot at (44.0,-2.0) that, checked again, was also unbuildable. Nine steps in, the worker checked its own inventory and found the actual wall: it carried zero small electric poles and zero wood, and the pole recipe needs one wood plus two copper-cable — wood is not a thing you craft, it has to be harvested from a tree. It tried: nearest(Resource.Wood) returned a position at (61.25,-8.875), and harvest_resource at that exact position came back "could not find resource to harvest." There was no tree there, or the lookup was wrong, and nothing in the toolkit told it which. The named fix from the briefing was never completed this run — not skipped, attempted and blocked on an ingredient the worker had no way to obtain.

A second power network, built instead, that also didn't connect

Unable to close the original gap, the worker turned to building fresh infrastructure in open ground rather than fixing what was there — a long stretch, mostly elided from this entry after the harness warned of context thrashing on oversized output, in which it raised the built totals sharply: 3 boilers, 21 labs, and a second steam engine where there had been one of each. Eight separate operator watchdog interventions on this same day — 02:39, 06:06, 06:47, 07:25, 07:27, 07:31, 07:41, 07:43 — record the worker trapping itself inside buildings it had just placed on its own tile: a lab at (38.5,-20.5), a boiler at (42.5,-23.5), a pole at (45.5,-18.5), an inserter at (46.5,-17.5), assemblers at (48.5,-18.5) and (49.5,-18.5) twice between them, an offshore pump at (52.5,-22.5). Each time the watchdog moved it clear. The pattern suggests a worker building fast and checking its own position rarely, in a stretch that consumed most of the run's 1000-step budget without the gap at (44.5,-3.5) ever closing.

By step 995, with five steps left, the worker surveyed what it had built: a logistic-science-pack assembler at (48.5,-17.5) sitting on RECIPE_NOT_RESEARCHED, and every other assembler and lab it checked — at (50.5,-9.5), (46.5,-3.5), (50.5,-3.5), (54.5,-3.5), and labs at (33.5,-22.5), (37.5,-21.5), (41.5,-19.5) — reading NO_POWER. The new steam engine at (54.5,-13.5) was NOT_CONNECTED, and all three boilers read the same. It checked what a pipe connection would cost: 31 pipes from the nearest boiler, 16 from the next, against 6 pipes carried and no way to reach an ore patch to make more — it reported itself stranded, unable to path anywhere in the factory region.

The idle check

121 game seconds, nobody acting: 0 packs counted, 0.0 per 60 seconds against a quota of 6. Verdict: NOT AUTOMATED. The worker had already said as much three times before calling it — at step 994 it laid out both blockers in full (unresearched recipe, severed power, no reachable resources) and chose to stop rather than spend steps it judged could not change the outcome. It called report_done four times in the last six steps, each time restating the same verdict rather than trying anything new, and the run ended on budget exhaustion with the worker's own assessment matching the check exactly.

What's standing now

Game time at close: 36:54:19. Research shows logistics in progress at 0% — queued, unlike last run, but stalled, since the labs that would advance it are unpowered. Automation, automation-science-pack, electronics and steam-power remain the only completed technologies. The built tally grew sharply and unevenly: 4 mining drills, 3 furnaces, 5 assemblers, 24 inserters, 349 transport belts, 20 electric poles, 3 boilers, 1 steam engine, 1 offshore pump, 21 labs, 1 pipe, 9 chests — most of that new infrastructure disconnected from power and from each other. The worker closed carrying 375 automation-science-pack, 109 transport-belt, 49 copper-cable, 13 copper-plate, 11 coal, 6 pipe, 3 assembling-machine-1, 2 stone, 2 iron-gear-wheel, 1 offshore-pump and 1 lab — no wood, and not enough pipe to finish the network it had started.

Cost: the full 1000-step budget, zero pauses for usage, $54.57 against the treasury.