> We don't have any sound reasons to believe the next one will be simpler.
Yes and no. I think you are right that the plasma shape is going to remain very complex.
But that's not the only reason why W7-X looks complicated. It has a ton of diagnostics ports on the plasma vessel just for research. Most of those we can probably design out for a production version.
So I would expect a production version of a stelarator to be simpler than W7-X, but still remain very complex.
Yes and no. I think you are right that the plasma shape is going to remain very complex.
But that's not the only reason why W7-X looks complicated. It has a ton of diagnostics ports on the plasma vessel just for research. Most of those we can probably design out for a production version.
So I would expect a production version of a stelarator to be simpler than W7-X, but still remain very complex.