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Explorer Challenge

The Challenge: Visit all the planets and moons in the Solar System and build a beacon on each of them, in Survival, using only a single small-grid vehicle. How: Start a new Solar System map, spawn this rover on Earth – switch to Survival and try to reach every planet in one go! This will unlock the Explorer achievement for you (although it is a pretty hardcore way to earn it).

This is a blueprint for a heavy modified version of Adventurer scout chassis. Everything else you need is already in the game. The chassis is lighter, the wheels are bigger and I’ve completely re-arranged the components to add three different types of thrusters and some scouting equipment.

This is the rover I've used this to complete the challenge. With permadeath, no medbay and no save, it took me three attempts but I’ve finally made it, so this is a thoroughly tested scouting vehicle. Note that the distances between the planets of the Solar System are so great that you will need about an hour of flight between them. I suggest using a speed-modded map.

Skyboxes with SpeedMod: http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=392650273

There are wrecked ships and abandoned bases to explore and pirates to evade in the asteroids between planets, and each moon and planet that you land on will provide different challenges. It is not easy, doing all this in survival but even if you fail or get bored half-way between Mars and Alien planet, you will learn a lot about space engineering, navigation and how to conserve power, adjust wheels, and look for precious ice to convert to hydrogen for your main thruster.

There is a bit of uranium, some ice and enough components in the cargo for 7 beacon and reactors. The rover has artificial mass around wheels that you can turn on for moons with low gravity. There is also a very useful camera that you can use to locate ice and examine space wrecks.

Even without the challenge, this is a useful scouting vehicle.

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The second part of the challenge is for all of you who want to construct your own vehicle for the longest jounrney.