Mass-producing troops was one of the Three Great Empires' signature strengths. They might have relied mainly on near-limitless resources to pull it off, but figuring out how to convert resources into soldiers as efficiently as possible was an incredibly profound discipline. Even more profound was how to get those manufactured soldiers to the battlefield at the fastest possible speed.
Anyone who had played automation games should understand that final output depended not only on mining efficiency and factory assembly efficiency, but also on conveyor belt efficiency. In the late game, conveyor belt efficiency was often the most important factor.
Suppose the mining efficiency and factory assembly efficiency were both limitless. Then the only thing left to optimize was conveyor belt efficiency—in other words, how to get the finished products to their destination as efficiently as possible. There was a great deal to it. Building factories was fun for a moment; routing belts was a crematorium. At first, you only wanted to shift a conveyor belt a little, but when you looked up again, dawn had broken.
Humanity was still somewhat lacking in this area. More accurately, they had no use for such technology yet. After all, they had not reached the point of limitless resources, much less accumulated the kind of vast reserves possessed by the Three Great Empires.
But this was technology they would have to master sooner or later. Humanity's individual population was simply too small. If they wanted to wage a prolonged war against the Three Great Empires, they definitely could not rely solely on their own species. Their Asgardian allies were even fewer in number. Despite developing for so many years, they had shown no signs of improvement, so humanity could only mass-produce troops themselves.
Stark's plan was to acquire the technology first. He did not