Rocket silo

The rocket silo is a late-game building used to launch rockets into space. It is unlocked by its technology after researching all science packs except military science packs. Crafting a rocket part in the silo requires 10 low density structures, 10 rocket fuel, and 10 processing units, for a total of 1,000 of each to build a single rocket.

Before a rocket can be launched, a cargo landing pad must be placed somewhere on the planet. The landing pad may be placed anywhere, with no distance restriction from the silo, but only one can exist. Once the rocket has a payload, it can be launched manually with the Launch button, or it can be set to launch automatically by enabling Send to orbit automatically.

A rocket launch requires a payload. The first time the player launches a rocket, it triggers the victory screen, which thanks the player and offers the choice to exit the game, view the credits, or continue playing. Of the available payloads, one is a Satellite; launching a rocket with a Satellite returns 1,000 space science packs to the cargo landing pad about 29 seconds after launch is triggered.

The silo has a multi-phase launch cycle. In the base game, the rocket parts are assembled first, then the rocket is raised for loading, then the payload is inserted, then the rocket is launched, and finally the silo resets. A fully moduled silo can reach +611% crafting speed from beacons and +40% productivity. With those bonuses, assembling 100 rocket parts takes 1,250 ticks. The full launch cycle, including the animations and reset, takes 3,684 ticks, or about 61.417 seconds.

The phases that affect performance are worth noting:

• Modules speed up the crafting phase, but do not affect the later launch animations.
• In the loading phase, inserting a Satellite with a fast inserter takes 14 ticks.
• The reset phase, which closes the silo door before another cycle can begin, takes 368 ticks.
• If a second rocket is already buffered inside the silo, the reset step is skipped.

In Space Age, the rocket silo can buffer a second rocket that is ready to load and launch. When that second rocket is available, the silo skips the door-closing and door-opening animation, so the cycle becomes shorter. In that case, only the preparing, loading, and launching phases occur. The preparing animation lasts 684 ticks and the launch animation lasts 933 ticks; with instant loading, this gives a launch every 1,617 ticks, or about 26.95 seconds, assuming sufficient speed and productivity bonuses to maintain the required rocket-part rate.