Virtual Explorers

It just so happens the land-train aspect of Explorers lends it self very well to planetary exploration....who would have though lol. There's one or two games out there where you can a have a Explorer type experience.

ASTRONEER

A fun little game based upon exploring cartoonish planets. The game features all kinds of modular machines however this post only contains information on the wheeled vehicles. Vehicles start from small buggy types all the way up to 6 wheeled monster Explorer variety. The vehicles can then be lashed together using flex umbilical's and fitted with a variety of tools, power packs, winch's etc which all fit together via a snap-in function similar to Lego! The vehicles feature All Wheel Drive too!

I made a post about the toy range on the developers website many years ago, never heard anything back but it would be nice to know if it inspired them in anyway!

This has to be EX2!

Astroneer | A Game of Aerospace Industry and Interplanetary Exploration

Astroneer: A sci-fi exploration and adventure game from developer System Era.

System Era LogoSystem Era

Kerbal Space Program

Been out since 2013 with a new version in development. KSP started as a just a little game then expanded into a huge release with many hundreds of excellent mods available. The game features layman type physics meaning you can get deep into the physics of rocketry without actually being a rocket scientist. The aim of the game is space flight however does have a very interesting planetary exploration element unlike Astroneer which features ground exploration exclusively. It can be quite challenging building a vehicle and successfully delivering it to another world in one piece. I've often though of making an Explorer mod for KSP however the designs some of these guys have made a far, far superior and functional!

Here one I made for exploring the Moon complete with RTG trailers. Longer vehicles are possible but must be driven with extreme care on low G worlds due to the banding effect of the towed vehicles! Trailers can be dumb units or AWD.

Delivery Vehicle (DV). Another RTG trailer is just visible in the furthest away DV. The DV's were made specially for low G environments as the mechanics for delivering a large 40 ton land vehicle in an planetary atmosphere are different.

Launch Vehicle. The Delivery Vehicle is at the very top!

Mining Trailer

Nuclear RTG Trailer

Trailer for Liquid Fuel

Not my designs!

KSP example launch

Kerbal Space Program – Create and Manage Your Own Space Program

Thoughts? See the comments box below!