Here's an admission for the crowd: I find Area, as a primary metric, enjoyable. What I don't enjoy is optimizing for speed within that small envelope. If there are already a litany of difficult operations at this size, why are we in such a rush for them? But I suppose that is the engineering of alchemical engineering. Historically, I have been able to create all sorts of minimal-size machines--we shall see if this is one of them.

Translating in a different direction is more immediately promising, as the other unique direction (according to symmetry) requires fewer hexes in the final translation. But in that direction, the central spine of the molecule is crooked, spindly and large, necessitating its own extra area and extra final translation. In this figure-8 orientation, the central spine can be made in the area already swept. I believe both translation directions are viable for 43, but am not sure which one yields 42.

- Alchemist Kazyan