Santoblasted at loop 8. Can you beat that? =)
Lol, this got me going on trying to optimize the whole game. I am not doing perfect, but I believe I am doing fairly good. I did manage to get Santoblasted on loop 5, and am currently just starting loop 9 with Santorini about half done and almost through the third layer in Laurion.
tldr: Description of loops 6-8 and thoughts about what next.
Loop 6 was all about getting the shortcut to the dam and getting all the way to Santorini without running out of power or water, loop 7 much the same and prepping some blue actions. Could optimize them more, but diminishing returns.. I didn't really see any major reason for trying yet again.
Loop 8, the shortcut was prepped enough to go directly, get two boxes, continue. Do a bunch of blue actions, get the suit, the fuel, the speed filter, and the solar power tech. Return through shortcut to Talos, because that requires way less power than it would going straight to Laurion. Pit stop, get solar going to get the last few points of power needed to go through the tunnel to Laurion. In Laurion, just install the generator and sped up water filter, get all the remaining blues, then drill baby drill!
Plan for 9 is much the same as 8, but maybe get three boxes this time. Could go for Astrape after Santorini instead of Laurion, or maybe Pneuma. That would adhere to Shadowsand's plan of making it more difficult to drill but with more stuff that can make it easier spread out in the different locations, and I'm currently done with blues in Laurion. Since I will need to return to research places later anyway, maybe I'll save the drilling for those instances instead. On the other hand, doing those trips without that artifact support is not quite optimal.