I had work that week, so I couldn't get much in. The day before I was itching so I started a space exploration save and got a little attached to that even though I never made it past military science. Now I'm playing space age and have just built a rocket!

I'll add more details:

The start was poor, with widely spaced starting resources, no choke points, and a dry climate which absorbs pollution the least. The only good thing was a nearby small oil vein. So for the first few hours, I intentionally didn't scale up as not to anger the biters. I actually researched military and gun turrets before automation.

Then, I scaled up but minimized pollution by switching to solar power with only 8 steam engines running, and made many efficiency modules. With that, I could focus on getting bots and trains, and heading to space, and that's where I am now.