I believe this should be the minimum cycle count.

You can pull in one reagent every 2 cycles, so the minimum cycle count is 2 × 11 + the cycle count for the first product, which I believe is 5.

To make the first product, you need at least 1 grab, 3 projections/rejections, 1 bond, and 1 move to the output.

That's 6 steps in total. However, you can combine the bonding step with one of the projection steps, reducing it to 5 cycles.

So the minimum cycles should be 5 + 22 = 27 cycles.

If I'm wrong, and I hope I'm not, I'll start going to bed at 11pm every night to regrow some brain wrinkles flatten by this puzzle for next week's weekly.

I also tried to optimize the cost, but every attempt just ended up reducing the area instead. I guess you really do need that many arms and projections/rejections to make every move count.



And I really think this solution looks like a Luger btw.