This was before space age but I believe you can start with a max size starting area and nerf pollution spreading so you never deal with biters and only focus on production. Also increasing the size and richness of the ore patches helps so you never need to touch trains. I’ve also completed two vanilla runs and got significantly through Bob’s and Angel’s mods before attempting this.
With this I was able to launch a rocket in 6h52m on my first try.
Here are my steps:
- Make your basic furnace stacks, the start of a bus, and starter production of infrastructure (belts, inserters, etc.)
- Get oil and build in anticipation of advanced oil processing. Put fluid lines in their own bus lanes. Set up red circuits and blue science.
- Rush bots, but not much more than personal construction bots and perhaps a few logistics bots, but not more than a few. Use them for solar power. Nuclear is not necessary.
- Beeline for the rocket. Don’t research unnecessary things. Build what’s enough and don’t plan for megabase expandability. Hopefully this will achieve the achievement.
Not to mention, for a naturally aspirated IC engine, you actually make more power in cold weather due to it being more thermodynamically efficient with a colder intake. (This is the reason why an intercooler increases the power output of a tuner car.)