Strap in for another wall o' text, I've updated the guide with an entirely new base design! Once again, I'll be using spoilers to split things up; that way everyone can read what they care about and skip the rest. If you don't want to follow a step-by-step guide, I suggest checking out "Overall Philosophy," "Research Order," and "The Map" for some general ideas that are applicable to any spoon run.
Despite the much higher resource requirements caused by the introduction of purple and gold science packs, I actually beat my old time for the rocket launch - I reached game end at 6:14:26. And if I hadn't made a dumb oversight in the design (more on that later), I would've been able to launch in six hours, easily. It's still a wild scramble for the first three hours, but the introduction of blueprint strings into the base game (no research or mods required) is *huge*, because it means no more alt-tabbing to consult screenshots every other second.
I've attached a replay (requires 0.15.27) if anyone wants to watch me build. I find it slightly embarrassing, myself; when I was playing, I felt like I was super-efficiently building and keeping the game paused the rest of the time, but watching the replay, apparently I spend a lot of time staring into space.
- Spoon replay.zip
- (7.47 MiB) Downloaded 1150 times
Overall philosophy
Here's some observations that shaped my design. If you're just planning on following the blueprint step-by-step, you don't need to read this.
- Obviously, things are easiest with very large, very common, very rich resource patches. I turned off Uranium since it's irrelevant to a spoon run. It helps to turn coal and stone down a bit from the max, otherwise they tend to overwhelm the more useful iron and copper.
- With the removal of alien artifacts, the aliens don't serve a necessary purpose anymore. Setting aliens to peaceful disables the achievement, but setting "Enemy Bases" to "None" does not.
- Without aliens, pollution is irrelevant. Roll coal to the max, and generally do whatever is cheapest (which is usually whatever is dirtiest). You can also completely disable pollution for some extra UPS, which I did in my map.
- Design your base with self-contained sections. For instance, my base has the red/green science production completely on its own, not depending on anything from the rest of the base. This helped a lot in keeping up the pace in building vs. researching. I really wish I had done the same for blue science.
- You definitely want 4 productivity module 3s for the rocket silo, to reduce the number of rocket parts from 100 to 72. This gives you 80 productivity module 1s that you can use the rest of the time essentially "for free" - make sure to take advantage.
- You don't need to sustain the same rate of production for all the research packs. By buffering research in a chest, you can build up an excess when you're researching tech that doesn't use that type, and drain it down later. This keeps you from needing to overbuild the more expensive research packs.
- Make sure to leave slop in your production schedule. I didn't follow this one well enough, and so when I miscalculated on the number of blue chips needed (by forgetting to count the cost of 4 production module 3s), it extended the overall time by ~15 minutes.
- Worse is better. Specifically, slower, low-tech methods of doing things are often actually more efficient once pollution is out of the picture. For instance:
- Two basic factories cost the same as a blue factory to build, but produce at 4/3 the speed. They also consume less power per item. Yellow factories are ridiculously expensive, don't even bother researching them.
- Two stone furnaces are much cheaper than a single steel furnace. The steel furnace uses coal more efficiently, but the partial extra mining drill used to supply the furnaces is still much cheaper than the difference.
- Burner inserters are actually a slight win over regular inserters for feeding coal to boilers or feeding furnaces. The supporting math is in my planning spreadsheet (which is somewhat of a mess, since it was also my scratchpad during the run).
- Always be hand-crafting *something*. You almost always need more belts and inserters; assemblers and mining drills are also good default choices. You should never be waiting around for something to craft; ideally, you planned ahead and built it while you were placing the last several things.
The map
This combined with the blueprint should be enough for most uses. If you need to see the details of which way an inserter points or what a particular bush looks like, download the full-size map below, which is 16x bigger. (4x wider and 4x taller.)
- Big Screenshot (Small).jpg (2.44 MiB) Viewed 60181 times
The full-resolution map .warning. 13013x12001 its big
Chrome doesn't like zooming in on this, but Window's built-in image preview does OK. An image editing program like the GIMP works best. I blanked out everything that wasn't the base itself to cut down on the file size.
- Big Screenshot.jpg (13.39 MiB) Viewed 60181 times
Research order
I'm putting this near the top, because you'll need to reference it frequently.
This is not precisely the research order I used, so there might be some bugs in it. The one I used *definitely* had some issues, though, so this one should be better. If you can get blue science up and running before I did, then move "Advanced Oil Processing" up an appropriate number of slots.
There's only two techs on that list that aren't strictly necessary for building the rocket, the silo, or the satellite: Logistics and Advanced Oil Processing. I grabbed the latter because making a self-regulating oil pipeline is next to impossible without access to cracking, and the former because I don't want to even contemplate designing a factory without underground belts and splitters. They're also both relatively cheap techs.
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Logistics
Automation
Steel
Electronics
Automation 2
Electric Energy Distribution 1
Oil
Plastic
Engine
Advanced Electronics
Modules
Productivity Module
Speed Module
Military
Turrets
Optics
Military 2
Sulfur Processing
Electric Engine
Advanced Oil Processing
Solar Energy
Advanced Electronics 2
Battery
Advanced Material Processing
Advanced Material Processing 2
Electric Energy Accumulators
Concrete
Productivity Module 2
Flammables
Speed Module 2
Explosives
Rocketry
Rocket Shooting 1
Rocket Shooting 2
Rocket Shooting 3
Productivity Module 3
Rocket Shooting 4
Speed Module 3
Rocket Shooting 5
Rocket Silo
There's only two techs on that list that aren't strictly necessary for building the rocket, the silo, or the satellite: Logistics and Advanced Oil Processing. I grabbed the latter because making a self-regulating oil pipeline is next to impossible without access to cracking, and the former because I don't want to even contemplate designing a factory without underground belts and splitters. They're also both relatively cheap techs.
Game start
Here's the map exchange string to use if you're following the guide step-by-step (which will be the rest of the sections). This *won't* work in 0.15.28, which had a mapgen bug.
Once you start, your first task is to properly align and place the master blueprint. I'm putting the blueprint string in the next reply, because it's so long that it puts this post over the character limit. Here's a picture showing where the center of the blueprint (i.e. the place you have to click) is in relation to the map spawn point:
And here's a detailed screenshot showing the alignment of the blueprint. Two useful landmarks are circled: The pair of logs, and the sequence of 3 copper ore squares followed by 1 iron square. Once you have the blueprint lined up correctly, use "Build Ghost" (by default Shift-Left Click) to place it even though it overlaps with lots of trees.
The blueprint will help immensely! For one thing, all the trees and rocks that are in the way are conveniently marked for destruction, so you know which ones need to be cleared. (Although you have to be careful: It's very easy to cancel the ghost building underneath when you're clearing.) The blueprint also marks which factories will (eventually) get productivity modules. The only downside is that all the factories that produce items that you don't start out the game knowing how to build will have their production cleared. Turn on "show detailed info" to see the rest.
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- Spawn Start.jpg (272.24 KiB) Viewed 60181 times
- Blueprint Position.jpg (265.49 KiB) Viewed 60181 times
Bootstrap
Down in the lower-right, past the big coal patch you'll see a little cluster of (ghost) burner mining drills. That's what we'll use to bootstrap up to enough plates to start the real base. Burner drills are nice because they are very cheap and require no copper.
Produce only one iron axe; save the other 4 plates. Place your initial drill on the iron patch and the furnace next to it. Cut a tree (that's marked for destruction) to provide fuel for both, and then go north and mine 5 stone. Build a furnace with that (in general, turn all stone into furnaces as soon as possible), and go back to the miner. You should have enough iron to build another drill, which will go on the coal on the other side of the furnace.
Chop down another tree if you need to, and then from now on you should be 100% on coal power. Gather iron plates and coal from the furnace, and split the coal stack to provide fuel when the miners run out. Go north again and hand mine 10 more stone - this will become a drill and a furnace. The drill will go on the stone patch, and the furnace will be used as a poor-man's chest. (Don't put fuel in it - we don't want stone brick right now.) After that, build more drills and furnaces to increase iron production. Once you have filled out the blueprint (4 iron drills, 3 coal drills), go place the other stone miner, and switch out the furnaces there for chests. After that, build the 2 copper drills and 1 coal drill in the copper section.
Once you've got those established, you'll be bringing in resources *almost* as fast as you can burn them. Your goal now is to hand-craft the infrastructure you'll need to start the real base, while keeping the drills running. You need 1 steam engine, 1 offshore pump, 1 boiler, 1 pair of pipe-to-ground, 2 pipes, 9 boilers, 7 electric mining drills, 10 burner inserters, ~80 transport belts, ~50 iron for emergencies, and as many power poles as you have the wood for. You can skimp on some of the drills, but it's important to have enough belts.
The last thing to do before leaving the bootstrap area is to collect all the spare coal and dump it in the two stone drills. You'll be back at some point for more stone, and if you give them enough coal now you'll only need to make one trip. In my game, I finished this bootstrap phase at 11:10 in.
Produce only one iron axe; save the other 4 plates. Place your initial drill on the iron patch and the furnace next to it. Cut a tree (that's marked for destruction) to provide fuel for both, and then go north and mine 5 stone. Build a furnace with that (in general, turn all stone into furnaces as soon as possible), and go back to the miner. You should have enough iron to build another drill, which will go on the coal on the other side of the furnace.
Chop down another tree if you need to, and then from now on you should be 100% on coal power. Gather iron plates and coal from the furnace, and split the coal stack to provide fuel when the miners run out. Go north again and hand mine 10 more stone - this will become a drill and a furnace. The drill will go on the stone patch, and the furnace will be used as a poor-man's chest. (Don't put fuel in it - we don't want stone brick right now.) After that, build more drills and furnaces to increase iron production. Once you have filled out the blueprint (4 iron drills, 3 coal drills), go place the other stone miner, and switch out the furnaces there for chests. After that, build the 2 copper drills and 1 coal drill in the copper section.
Once you've got those established, you'll be bringing in resources *almost* as fast as you can burn them. Your goal now is to hand-craft the infrastructure you'll need to start the real base, while keeping the drills running. You need 1 steam engine, 1 offshore pump, 1 boiler, 1 pair of pipe-to-ground, 2 pipes, 9 boilers, 7 electric mining drills, 10 burner inserters, ~80 transport belts, ~50 iron for emergencies, and as many power poles as you have the wood for. You can skimp on some of the drills, but it's important to have enough belts.
The last thing to do before leaving the bootstrap area is to collect all the spare coal and dump it in the two stone drills. You'll be back at some point for more stone, and if you give them enough coal now you'll only need to make one trip. In my game, I finished this bootstrap phase at 11:10 in.
Red-Green Science
From here out, it pays to start pausing religiously. If you don't know precisely what you're going to do next, pause. If you're really going for speed, you can unpause-click-pause in a split second, and do all your mouse movements paused, to place lots of items in a very small amount of elapsed time.
Start by building power: The pump, underground pipe, drill, boiler and steam engine. Build the right-hand-side boiler and engine, because the left-hand-side would require an extra pipe-to-ground pair, and they're expensive at this point. You only need 4 belts for the short run between the closest drill and the first inserter. You'll need 8 power poles to weave around and connect from the steam engine to the science area, which is high but it covers future coal drills.
Now build out the iron production for the science area. Start putting the coal drill down, building the furnaces and placing the burner inserters. Then run the belts so that they can start grabbing coal. This is a general principle - always run coal to the furnaces first, because the burner inserters start with barely enough power to feed themselves a single coal, and if they grab an iron ore instead you'll have to manually give them coal to get them unstuck. Also, you'll have to overwrite the ghost splitter at the junction, because you can't build splitters yet - this should be the one time you need to unbuild something to replace it later.
Once the coal's taken care of, put down the rest of your drills on the iron and run the rest of the belts. Now you have a working iron supply, and until you automate science it's producing more iron than you can use. Assuming your copper situation isn't critical, build a lab and 20 red science. While that is being produced, start building out the small copper section. As soon as you can, place the lab in the lower-right corner of the two research rows and give it the 20 research packs. Don't bother building the inserters or belts around it yet, just hook up power so you can research Logistics. In the mean time, finish building the copper smelting area. By the time you're ready to build the splitter that feeds coal to the copper furnaces, the research should be done. Note that the fourth copper furnace doesn't have an output inserter; it's capacity isn't needed to run the science production. It exists only to provide periodic copper for the player in the early to mid-game.
Around now you'll probably be needing to add power capacity. The ratio to follow is one coal drill for every boiler. Now is also a good time to add another coal drill to the cluster that provides for the smelters. You'll also want to hand produce another 10 red science to research Automation. You can start building the belts and inserters that make up the scaffolding now; once the research is done you can add in the gear assembler and the 4 red science assemblers to automate the beginnings of research!
Of course, research will go very slowly with only one lab. You need 6 to keep up with the assemblers at this point, and before long that will expand to 10. Once you've got 6 labs going, build out the green science half. Of course, you can't finish that without the ability to build a blue factory for the inserters, which requires Automation 2. I finished researching that at 36:15, but by then I had already started building other things and came back to finish that final bit.
Start by building power: The pump, underground pipe, drill, boiler and steam engine. Build the right-hand-side boiler and engine, because the left-hand-side would require an extra pipe-to-ground pair, and they're expensive at this point. You only need 4 belts for the short run between the closest drill and the first inserter. You'll need 8 power poles to weave around and connect from the steam engine to the science area, which is high but it covers future coal drills.
Now build out the iron production for the science area. Start putting the coal drill down, building the furnaces and placing the burner inserters. Then run the belts so that they can start grabbing coal. This is a general principle - always run coal to the furnaces first, because the burner inserters start with barely enough power to feed themselves a single coal, and if they grab an iron ore instead you'll have to manually give them coal to get them unstuck. Also, you'll have to overwrite the ghost splitter at the junction, because you can't build splitters yet - this should be the one time you need to unbuild something to replace it later.
Once the coal's taken care of, put down the rest of your drills on the iron and run the rest of the belts. Now you have a working iron supply, and until you automate science it's producing more iron than you can use. Assuming your copper situation isn't critical, build a lab and 20 red science. While that is being produced, start building out the small copper section. As soon as you can, place the lab in the lower-right corner of the two research rows and give it the 20 research packs. Don't bother building the inserters or belts around it yet, just hook up power so you can research Logistics. In the mean time, finish building the copper smelting area. By the time you're ready to build the splitter that feeds coal to the copper furnaces, the research should be done. Note that the fourth copper furnace doesn't have an output inserter; it's capacity isn't needed to run the science production. It exists only to provide periodic copper for the player in the early to mid-game.
Around now you'll probably be needing to add power capacity. The ratio to follow is one coal drill for every boiler. Now is also a good time to add another coal drill to the cluster that provides for the smelters. You'll also want to hand produce another 10 red science to research Automation. You can start building the belts and inserters that make up the scaffolding now; once the research is done you can add in the gear assembler and the 4 red science assemblers to automate the beginnings of research!
Of course, research will go very slowly with only one lab. You need 6 to keep up with the assemblers at this point, and before long that will expand to 10. Once you've got 6 labs going, build out the green science half. Of course, you can't finish that without the ability to build a blue factory for the inserters, which requires Automation 2. I finished researching that at 36:15, but by then I had already started building other things and came back to finish that final bit.
Wandering towards blue science
There is a *lot* of stuff to build to get the blue science line up and running, because unfortunately I integrated it a bit too well with the rest of the factory. As a result, blue science packs will likely be the long pole (slightly) in the overall research race, when ideally it would be green science setting the pace.
The first priority is to build a new source of iron, since your current one is going to be fully consumed by science production. After that, build steel production - about 10 furnaces worth. You don't need to build a place for it to go just yet - it takes a long time before a furnace fills with steel. Somewhere along the line, you should expand to 10 labs, which will hold you until you get productivity modules.
After that, the next most useful thing is probably to start building the right-side copper production. Again, don't build all the drills or furnaces now, but you'll need to put in most of the belts for it to be functional. Hook up the nascent right-side iron via belts to where it will feed the central chip line - that way, you can hook up the two chests (one for iron, one for copper) that exist only to collect resources for you so that you don't have to stop at the furnaces so often. At some point, you should hook up the steel via belts to its collection chests, as well. Don't forget to keep an eye on your power usage as you add more mining drills.
After that, it doesn't really matter what order you build the rest in. You need the engine/drill assembler section, part of the main chip production line, some of both the left-side copper and left-side iron to make the previous two go, and of course the oil production section. The oil area deserves special note, because you have to take care initially, since there are no buffering storage tanks and nothing to consume heavy oil. Only build one refinery initially (the bottom one makes the most sense), but *do* build the rest of the pipes, as well as the lubricant plant and the solid fuel plants. The extra pipes will provide enough storage for heavy oil so that you can produce enough plastic (and thus, advanced circuits, and thus, blue science) to research advanced oil processing. As a result, make sure that you do *not* place the inserters that load the storage chests for plastic until after you've finished converting the oil pipeline to cracking + advanced oil.
I was able to finish all of that and start researching advanced oil processing at 1:42:50.
The first priority is to build a new source of iron, since your current one is going to be fully consumed by science production. After that, build steel production - about 10 furnaces worth. You don't need to build a place for it to go just yet - it takes a long time before a furnace fills with steel. Somewhere along the line, you should expand to 10 labs, which will hold you until you get productivity modules.
After that, the next most useful thing is probably to start building the right-side copper production. Again, don't build all the drills or furnaces now, but you'll need to put in most of the belts for it to be functional. Hook up the nascent right-side iron via belts to where it will feed the central chip line - that way, you can hook up the two chests (one for iron, one for copper) that exist only to collect resources for you so that you don't have to stop at the furnaces so often. At some point, you should hook up the steel via belts to its collection chests, as well. Don't forget to keep an eye on your power usage as you add more mining drills.
After that, it doesn't really matter what order you build the rest in. You need the engine/drill assembler section, part of the main chip production line, some of both the left-side copper and left-side iron to make the previous two go, and of course the oil production section. The oil area deserves special note, because you have to take care initially, since there are no buffering storage tanks and nothing to consume heavy oil. Only build one refinery initially (the bottom one makes the most sense), but *do* build the rest of the pipes, as well as the lubricant plant and the solid fuel plants. The extra pipes will provide enough storage for heavy oil so that you can produce enough plastic (and thus, advanced circuits, and thus, blue science) to research advanced oil processing. As a result, make sure that you do *not* place the inserters that load the storage chests for plastic until after you've finished converting the oil pipeline to cracking + advanced oil.
I was able to finish all of that and start researching advanced oil processing at 1:42:50.
Draw the rest of the owl
The first priority after advanced oil processing is to enable cracking and convert to advanced processing, so that the oil processing pipeline becomes stable. Build out anything else you missed here so that the oil processing section is finished, except for the lubricant pipeline. Start collecting plastic into the plastic collection chests.
The next priority is to get module production going and produce 82 productivity modules. To avoid cutting into your blue science, you'll need to build out more copper production and more of the central chip line. Once you start getting productivity modules, put them in the research labs. This will slow them down, so you'll need to expand to 15 labs to keep up with green science. Once you have 82 total prod mods, switch to speed modules.
ASAP, get blue chip production going. This is likely going to be the long pole for the overall build. Again, you'll need more copper production - essentially all of it to run the blue chip assemblers at max. There isn't actually enough production on the chip line to feed all 5 assemblers when everything is running; the fifth is only there for now (when purple science hasn't started yet) or the end (when blue and purple science have shut down).
After that, the order is: Electric Engine assembler, then grey science production, then the rest of purple science, then gold science, and then the loose ends. (The solar panel assembler, the accumulator assembler, and the concrete assembler.) Take note: The iron ore input for the concrete assembler is also the buffer chest for gold science, so don't build the output inserter there until after concrete is done. Don't build the output inserter for the purple science buffer chest yet, either.
You're done with the frantic building! All the resource drills and furnaces should have been built as needed to fuel the production you were setting up, and you'll need to have built out essentially all of the power capacity as well. All that remains is 13 labs and the rocket launch area. I reached this point at around 2:55:00.
The next priority is to get module production going and produce 82 productivity modules. To avoid cutting into your blue science, you'll need to build out more copper production and more of the central chip line. Once you start getting productivity modules, put them in the research labs. This will slow them down, so you'll need to expand to 15 labs to keep up with green science. Once you have 82 total prod mods, switch to speed modules.
ASAP, get blue chip production going. This is likely going to be the long pole for the overall build. Again, you'll need more copper production - essentially all of it to run the blue chip assemblers at max. There isn't actually enough production on the chip line to feed all 5 assemblers when everything is running; the fifth is only there for now (when purple science hasn't started yet) or the end (when blue and purple science have shut down).
After that, the order is: Electric Engine assembler, then grey science production, then the rest of purple science, then gold science, and then the loose ends. (The solar panel assembler, the accumulator assembler, and the concrete assembler.) Take note: The iron ore input for the concrete assembler is also the buffer chest for gold science, so don't build the output inserter there until after concrete is done. Don't build the output inserter for the purple science buffer chest yet, either.
You're done with the frantic building! All the resource drills and furnaces should have been built as needed to fuel the production you were setting up, and you'll need to have built out essentially all of the power capacity as well. All that remains is 13 labs and the rocket launch area. I reached this point at around 2:55:00.
Finishing up
Once you've got the main base built, you've got some time. Sit back, and ensure that everything is running smoothly. (Note that you can actually take the time to look for bottlenecks earlier in the game, too: Just save your game first, and then take a leisurely look around. Note down any problems, then you can load and solve them quickly.)
First, double-check that you've built everything correctly. It's really easy to place an inserter the wrong way, or miss one somewhere. With your factory running full-out, there shouldn't be any major bottlenecks anywhere. In particular, there should be just enough chip capacity to supply the two module assemblers, 4 blue science assembles /w 1 prod mod each, and 4 blue chip assemblers /w 2 prod mods each. The fifth blue chip assembler will be mostly starving at this point. If the *fourth* assembler is starving, then you have a bottleneck somewhere that needs fixing.
One common issue is that the basic circuits are getting dumped onto the belt such that the gaps in-between are too small to fit another item. This lowers the throughput of the belt, and in the worst case it can cause the last set of basic circuit assemblers to get backed up trying to insert onto the belt. If this happens, delete a belt about halfway down the chip production line, so that everything backs up ahead of that point. Once the line is completely backlogged (all but the first basic circuit assembler are waiting to insert onto the belt), replace the missing belt. This will cause all the waiting inserters to insert at the first moment they are able to, which leaves no gaps. More importantly, as long as there aren't resource shortages on the input side, they'll keep that pattern. This trick works for any system (getting more than 9 drills onto a single side of a belt is another common application), but this is the only place in this factory where it's needed.
While you're monitoring your factory, build the rest of the labs and start building the rocket launch area. You'll also want to start staging resources into the chests, so that everything is already on the belts and ready to go when the rocket silo research finishes.
Speaking of research, you have some research-related math to do. You need 1224 gold and purple research packs - 1204 for the research itself, factoring in productivity modules, plus a safety margin of 20 to ensure that you don't end up with too many "holes" where a lab is missing one of the types it needs. Both types are produced at exactly 9.72 units per minute. So once everything is running with no bottlenecks, you'll want to note the current time, how many packs are in the buffer chests, and calculate at what time(s) you should cut off production of gold and purple science. Assuming you've done your job (and your math) right, this will be *before* rocket silo research is done. This is important because both consume resources that you probably still need more of. (Blue chips and electric engines, respectively.)
It helps to cut off gold and purple science by shutting off their input first; i.e. disable the elecrtic furnace and the inserters that pull from the blue chip/speed module buffer chests. That way, you don't waste any inputs from an in-progress build when you switch off the assembler. Don't forget to collect the productivity modules from the factories - you can start trading these up to productivity module 2s.
Once rocket silo research finishes, things get busy again. The first priority is to assign all the assemblers. Once you've assigned the first, you can use Copy/Paste Entity Settings (default Shift-Right/Left Click) to quickly assign the rest of the assemblers in the row. Don't worry about building the silo just yet; your next priority is to disable any research production that's still running and collect the productivity modules from everything. (Leave the ones in the blue chip assemblers, since they need to keep running.) Convert productivity module 1s into 2s, and then 2s into 3s. You'll need to hand build 8 prod mod 1s to cover the ones that are still in use.
Assuming that you are short on blue chips, you'll need to periodically ferry more speed modules and blue chips from where they are produced to their buffer chests in the rocket production area. Everything else should have more than sufficient resources. Gather what you need to build the silo, place it, and ensure that you have all 4 prod mod 3s in it before you hook up the input inserters. You'll need to hand-insert a number of batches to clear out the backlog, but that's fine, since you're still waiting on more blue chips. Reserve what you need to hand-build the satellite, and then it's just a matter of shuttling blue chips until you win.
First, double-check that you've built everything correctly. It's really easy to place an inserter the wrong way, or miss one somewhere. With your factory running full-out, there shouldn't be any major bottlenecks anywhere. In particular, there should be just enough chip capacity to supply the two module assemblers, 4 blue science assembles /w 1 prod mod each, and 4 blue chip assemblers /w 2 prod mods each. The fifth blue chip assembler will be mostly starving at this point. If the *fourth* assembler is starving, then you have a bottleneck somewhere that needs fixing.
One common issue is that the basic circuits are getting dumped onto the belt such that the gaps in-between are too small to fit another item. This lowers the throughput of the belt, and in the worst case it can cause the last set of basic circuit assemblers to get backed up trying to insert onto the belt. If this happens, delete a belt about halfway down the chip production line, so that everything backs up ahead of that point. Once the line is completely backlogged (all but the first basic circuit assembler are waiting to insert onto the belt), replace the missing belt. This will cause all the waiting inserters to insert at the first moment they are able to, which leaves no gaps. More importantly, as long as there aren't resource shortages on the input side, they'll keep that pattern. This trick works for any system (getting more than 9 drills onto a single side of a belt is another common application), but this is the only place in this factory where it's needed.
While you're monitoring your factory, build the rest of the labs and start building the rocket launch area. You'll also want to start staging resources into the chests, so that everything is already on the belts and ready to go when the rocket silo research finishes.
Speaking of research, you have some research-related math to do. You need 1224 gold and purple research packs - 1204 for the research itself, factoring in productivity modules, plus a safety margin of 20 to ensure that you don't end up with too many "holes" where a lab is missing one of the types it needs. Both types are produced at exactly 9.72 units per minute. So once everything is running with no bottlenecks, you'll want to note the current time, how many packs are in the buffer chests, and calculate at what time(s) you should cut off production of gold and purple science. Assuming you've done your job (and your math) right, this will be *before* rocket silo research is done. This is important because both consume resources that you probably still need more of. (Blue chips and electric engines, respectively.)
It helps to cut off gold and purple science by shutting off their input first; i.e. disable the elecrtic furnace and the inserters that pull from the blue chip/speed module buffer chests. That way, you don't waste any inputs from an in-progress build when you switch off the assembler. Don't forget to collect the productivity modules from the factories - you can start trading these up to productivity module 2s.
Once rocket silo research finishes, things get busy again. The first priority is to assign all the assemblers. Once you've assigned the first, you can use Copy/Paste Entity Settings (default Shift-Right/Left Click) to quickly assign the rest of the assemblers in the row. Don't worry about building the silo just yet; your next priority is to disable any research production that's still running and collect the productivity modules from everything. (Leave the ones in the blue chip assemblers, since they need to keep running.) Convert productivity module 1s into 2s, and then 2s into 3s. You'll need to hand build 8 prod mod 1s to cover the ones that are still in use.
Assuming that you are short on blue chips, you'll need to periodically ferry more speed modules and blue chips from where they are produced to their buffer chests in the rocket production area. Everything else should have more than sufficient resources. Gather what you need to build the silo, place it, and ensure that you have all 4 prod mod 3s in it before you hook up the input inserters. You'll need to hand-insert a number of batches to clear out the backlog, but that's fine, since you're still waiting on more blue chips. Reserve what you need to hand-build the satellite, and then it's just a matter of shuttling blue chips until you win.