Two questions:
1. The description says there's a prologue + three chapters, is each facility a "chapter" with the "prologue" being Talos?
2. Is it currently possible to go straight from Talos to Santorini? I can't quite seem to make it without picking up the fuel and such from Laurion, I'm assuming there's something at Astrape I can inspect that shaves off enough time. (Haven't gotten far in that one cuz it's biiiiig lol)
1. Yes, there are currently a total of 4 facilities, including Talos.
2. It is possible, but mostly depends on having greater familiarity with the travel actions. I'm not sure what number of completions are needed to make it possible, but I think most people prefer going to Laurion first and doubling back through Talos anyway, to get more supplies.
Even if you can make it to Santorini from Talos without stopping at Laurion, you shouldn't anyways. Since Santorini is on a fixed timer, and you can only get so much done in one loop anyways, stopping at Laurion and performing a handful of tasks will actually save you time in the long run once you get serious with Astrape, even if the Santorini portion will take you an extra couple loops because of it. Astrape is unforgiving in its early attempts, so getting the time of gathering resources and fiddling with systems shaved down during the Santorini portion will save you tons in the long run. Trust me...
Personally, I beat the game in 28 loops, went through Laurion to Santorini twice, but when going further to Astrape, I first unlocked the "Talos to Santorini" path by upgrading my rover in Laurion first. The path becomes viable after you used it the first time because the energy cost gets reduced from 2 energy/sec to 1.5 and is significantly shorter
I've been playing through the game over and over because my browser keeps deleting my save and actually it's pretty fun.
I've been finding that I need to make the trip from Talos to Sanorini aided by the resources from Laurion about three times before I can start heading directly for Santorini right after leaving Talos. Once you can do that, there's no reason to visit Laurion again except to complete blue actions there, because Santorini has enough fuel to fill up your supply and then some.
