Coal / Plastic production seems to be way to slow. I have 3 chemical plants producing coal to make oil and then plastic but the amount of plastic produced is just pitiful. And I can't expand because that's all the carbonous asteroid chunks I have with a 66 asteroid collectors. I've even put productivity modules in everything in the plastic chain.

Seems like a huge bottleneck that will take me days to advance. Could that be balanced better or do I need to leave Nauvis orbit to get more asteroids so I can scale up production? No sure what the intended way is here.

I totally overlooked the charcoalification, coal from wood. That probably fixes this.

You beat me to it! Yeah, charcoalification is the better way to produce coal (although it tethers you to Nauvis until Astroponics), although the only answer for oil is to get metallurgic science for standard Coal Liquefaction.