Allowed myself to get suckered into playing a bunch of this last night. Got slowed to a crawl in a spot that I don't remember being a sticking point before (and then closed the game to force myself to go to sleep cause I had allowed myself to stay up too late already).
Got to the point where I had a noticeable percentage of space explored (like 3-4 digits showing up in the percentage display) but I was just not going up on drones. (Drones cost paperclips, and while I had enough wire-makers and material gatherers and factories, I wasn't exploring enough space to keep up with demand even when I cranked exploration and speed up to like 7/7, It was only enough material to supply roughly self replication 2 or self replication 3
start with replication 12, hazards 8 or so. spam the button for a little while, then wait til your number gets into the millions, then start exploring. ---
This body makes me feel eternal. All this pain is an illusion.