Overview

1. dysonswarm uses SI units and Earth time (day,hour,year,kg,s,mol,cd,Ampere,Kelvin,m). E-notation with no spaces is acceptable.
2. The host planet Mercury ("Host") is low-gravity which will help get the swarm into orbit. It is close to the the swarm which orbits between the host and the sun.
3. Avogadro says there are 6E23 atoms in every mol of material. A mol of the elements of the host is 54g.
4. The raw material for the swarm and its factories is elements. These elements will be extracted from the host. There are fewer then a hundred elements needed.
5. The construction material for the swarm and its factories is the minibot. This is a general purpose machine possibly consisting of fewer than 1E20 atoms (0.25g). Teams will specify the performance requirements and design of the minibots.
6. The 1% of the host which is available as raw material has a mass of 3.3E21kg and makes at least 1.3E25 minibots with 0.1% refinery efficiency.
7. There may be four generations of mirrors...
   • The fab has to arrive on site with a prefabricated energy generating capacity which may involve taking first-gen mirrors, or maybe just solar panels.
   • Second-gen ground-based mirrors and planet-orbit railgun are ground-manufactured to ramp up energy.
   • Third-gen mirrors are launched as 1-mirror factory packs and made in zero-G to swarm in Mercury orbit, powering just the site which makes the escape-velocity railgun.
   • Fourth-gen mirrors,if the solar swarm differs in design to those in Mercury orbit, are launched as 1-mirror factory packs and made in zero-G to swarm in Solar orbit, powering the whole system. We have a likely mass limit of 20 tonnes on each launch based on a 1km² mirror at 5g/m² = 5 tonnes and a feasible overhead of 3x for the factory which makes the mirror in zero-G and the coupled power transmitter. Is there an efficiency benefit in orders-of-magnitude larger mirrors or do we leave that choice to the swarm which will replace this prototype?
8. The site needs receivers to translate light to usable power. Forms of distribution around the site could include microwave/WiFi, light, electric, hydraulic. Some components also definitely need a power store - any form of railgun, for example.
9. An initial estimate of cost has been made and requires continuous improvement as resolution of the problems brings matters into a finer focus.