Medium Rover

Medium Rovers are the second tier of land vehicles after the Tractor and Buggy in Astroneer.

Though they have a built-in battery, rovers need power to operate. However, they function as an unlimited supply of air when being driven or tethered to. Provided you have excess power to spare at a base camp, connecting the Medium Rover's energy pipes at the front or back to a similar connection on a platform will recharge its internal battery and the power in your backpack (with priority going to the rover). The Medium Rover is much smaller than the Large Rover and can't support large modules, but is fairly maneuverable and can be taken down unexplored paths with caution.

Utility
The Medium Rover consumes power when thrusting or turning at 0.5U/s.

Without an external power source or batteries, the 8 Units of its internal battery empty in 16 seconds while accelerating in any direction continuously. The power gauge on the sides of the rover is not proportionate to small and medium batteries notably, and only contains a 25% of the power storage of a Small Battery. A Small Battery or Power Stack consequently more than quadruples the driving time for a Medium Rover, up to an additional 64 seconds.

Essentials

 * Rover Seat - Is required to drive the rover. Can be placed on the front or rear of the rover.

Power

 * By Base - via flexible power cable plugged into a platform or Habitat
 * By Module - via Power generating module such as, but not limited to: Generators, Solar panels, Wind Turbines
 * By Object- via collected Power (resource), Power Cells, or Batteries.

Storage

 * A medium rover starts with 4 small attachment slots on its top that can hold 2 medium objects, and the front and the back each provide a tier-two slot each that can be used to either carry small or large items.
 * Medium Storage - Allows carrying more small items on the vehicle such as Resources; use in combination with Large Storage to maximize space efficiency.
 * Large Storage - Each of these doubles the number of attachment points on the top of the rover.
 * Medium Battery - Increases power capacity by 256 Units, giving an additional 512 seconds of continuous driving time.

Tools

 * Crane - Used with a Drill Head for bulk resource collection
 * Winch - Allows the rover to tow other vehicles from a longer distance or large objects that normally cannot be tethered to
 * Drill Heads - Attached directly to the front of the Rover, allow digging tunnels while driving

Hauling and Trains
Like Large Rovers, Medium Rovers can be tethered together to form "trains".

There are limitations to how big a train can be, based on the number of vehicles and/or how full they are. The more vehicles or the more stuff that they carry, the slower they go, up to the point where they can no longer climb small rises or even move at all. Smaller trains of 2-4 cars are generally safe.

A Medium rover is capable of: Tip: When pulling a Large Rover with a Medium Rover, power drain remains the same and you receive the benefit of the Large Rover's battery supply and storage capacity. However, handling is poor as the Large Rover has a tendency to jack-knife when braking.
 * Pulling one loaded Large Rover
 * Pulling three loaded medium rovers

Trivia

 * s can link the power grids of base camps. As of alpha testing this is confirmed as two grids, but with adequate power sources in each base camp's grid, more may be possible.
 * s can supply unlimited oxygen and have attachment slots for supplies, so they can be use as general storage and function like temporary camps while exploring.
 * If you're in a drivers seat, debris from storms can't hurt you, which can make a vehicle a viable hiding place to wait out dangerous storms. As a precaution, note that vehicles do not auto-brake when a player is stationed in a chair on them.
 * The weight of a vehicle can be affected by attachments, additions, and how loaded up it is. The rover's weight determines how fast it can move or how/if it can be used in a train.

History
0.10.1: Changed the recipe from 2x Compound + 2x Aluminum to 2x Aluminum + 1 Ceramic

Media
Rover Rover moyen ローバー Łazik Exploradores Средний планетоход