The base of the Truck without any attachments added.
Description
Trucks are the second tier of land vehicles after the Rover in Astroneer. In order to build a truck you must first discover the schematic through research.
Though they have a built-in battery, trucks need power to be driven, and function as an unlimited supply of air when you're in or connected to it. Provided you have excess power to spare at a base camp, connecting to the truck will also replenish the power in your backpack.
The truck has more storage than the rover, but careful consideration of which attachments to use can impact its use and reuse. See the Adding Attachments section below.
Power and Storage
The truck with the outline of the hose used to attach it to a platform to recharge the power. After it is clicked, the hose appears solid.
Trucks have double the on-board storage of the Rover. The storage space can also be used to hold extra power in its raw form or you can equip the truck with other sources of power, like a solar panel or a generator.
A truck consumes 0.8 units/sec, or 1 bar of battery in 5 seconds. Without an external power source or batteries and under continual use, the 16 bars of its internal battery is emptied in 80 seconds.
- Power Options:
- The truck can be connected to a base platform to recharge its power. To recharge it in this manner, drive close to a platform until a clear blue version of a hose appears. Exit the truck (Tab) and place the mouse cursor over the clear hose and click. The hose will become solid and the truck will recharge if the base camp has adequate power being generated by sources like solar panels or wind turbines.
- It can have power sources (e.g. generator, solar panels, etc.) directly attached, making it easy to refuel as you go without the need to exit the truck as often if you pay attention to the power level remaining. If using a generator, organic materials are used to refuel, but you will only benefit from some sources in ideal conditions (e.g. daylight to use solar), so it can be helpful to have the gathered power materials
- Storage Options:
- A Truck base starts with eight small attachment slots on its top (which can also hold items that require the use of two slots) and a large attachment on either end. The end attachment slots can be used to link the vehicle to other vehicles to tow them and form a "train".
- Additional storage units can be crafted at the printer. These will use up two slots and stand on end to offer 8 slots, freeing the other base attachment slots to be used for other purposes, like hauling scavenged Artifacts back to research. If your main objective is to gather materials, fill as many of the slots as you can with storage.
Crafting a Truck
After discovering the Truck schematic via research, the Truck base can be crafted at the cost of 4 aluminum at the Vehicle Bay.
To drive a truck at least one seat needs to be added to it. You can add a seat by any of the following means:
- Connect the truck to and use a Vehicle Bay to select the seat-type you want to add. Warning: (as of alpha testing) seats attached at the vehicle bay are permanently attached and cannot be removed to reconfigure the vehicle.
- Craft a seat using a printer
- Find one while scavenging in or near a crashed ship.
Use
A truck, floating high above the ground
Before driving away, you also need to consider how you will keep it powered and what task(s) you want to configure it for while you explore.
The Truck can be configured using storage attachments or various parts from a printer that can be changed later or have some parts permanently installed at the Vehicle Bay. Permanently installed additions require the Truck to be connected to the Vehicle Bay. In multiplayer while driving trucks may be thrown into the air, and float high above the ground. Building up to it will cause it to drop back down when a player is near the truck.
Adding Attachments
Attachments vary in size, and so far (in alpha testing), those added by the Vehicle Bay cannot be removed, which means that trucks with attachments added in this manner will not be able to be reconfigured for different uses later on.
- All attachments (as of alpha testing) use either one or two attachment slots, so thinking about how the truck will be used is vital to choosing and configuring attachments.
- The weight of a vehicle can be affected by attachments, additions and how loaded up it is. The Trucks weight determines how fast it can move or how/if it can be used in a Road-train.
From the Vehicle Bay
The Vehicle Bay additions that have been discovered so far that can be built onto the Truck are:
- 1-Seat (uses 2 slots)
- 3-Seat (uses 4 slots)
- Crane ((uses 4 slots) - Used with a Drill Head for bulk material collection)
- Large Storage (Extra large - doubles the attachment points of half the top of the Truck)
From the Printer
A truck with a Wind Turbine attached. The smaller power sources from the backpack also work for this use and save storage space.
Printer Parts that can be attached to a Truck include:
- Storage
- Tier 2 Battery
- Solar Panel
- Wind Turbine
- Storage
- Winch
- Seat (at least one is required to drive the truck or the first truck in when towing a second vehicle.)
From the Backpack
Though these attachments are smaller, they offer an efficient way to to refuel, while maintaining maximum storage space for materials and any Artifacts you find to research. In addition these can be shuffled into the storage slots in the backpack if you need to place larger items on the truck.
- Solar (the small, single panel)
- Generator - the small version uses organic materials,making it easy to refuel almost anywhere
- Wind Vane
Hauling and Trains
A train consisting of several connected trucks
Like Rovers, Trucks can be tethered together to form "road-trains".
There are limitations 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 loaded onto them, the slower they go, up to the point where they can no longer climb small rises or even move at all.
Currently (during alpha testing):
- One Truck can pull three other empty trucks, but three trucks with regular storage on them are beyond its ability to pull.
- Two trailers full of Artifacts can be pulled by a single Truck.
- One truck with power sources and tool rack can pull at most one fully loaded-down double large storage truck. For example, a storage truck can be made by using eight full storage units on top and a battery, winch, or other large item mounted on the rear large attachment point.
Some of these permanent additions require the discovery of schematics to unlock them at the vehicle bay or printer first.
Safety
- If a truck flips, you will not generally incur injury or die unless you fall out of the truck into a large chasm or deep cave. To flip the truck back over, simple get close enough to enter it and try to do so.
- Sitting in a driver's seat will protect you from storms so long as the Truck does not flip. If you partially bury a Large Rover, so storms can't blow it away, it will make an ideal outpost/sanctuary since it also has it's own in-built Beacon to mark where it is.
- Trucks are not as easily flipped by storms as Rovers but they can be pushed around even when part of a heavy "road-train".
Other Uses
- Large Rovers can link the power grids of base camps. As of alpha testing this confirmed as two grids, but with adequate power sources in each base camp's grid, more may be possible.
- Large Rovers have their own in-built beacon which can be used to mark locations that don't justify establishing a new Habitat. This can be useful if normal beacons are being used for something else like marking roads or other points of interest. Bear in mind that rovers use fewer materials than trucks and can also serve this purpose.
- Large Rovers can supply unlimited air 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 driver's seat, storms can't hurt you so long as the truck does not roll. I
- A double large storage Truck can be used for mass storage of material or as a major mobile energy buffer if filled with Tier 2 Batteries or generator if energy generation apparatus are used.
Tips
- Use a printed or scavenged modular seat instead using the Vehicle Bay to add a seat or seats; by doing so, you can remove it later if you need to break up or reconfigure a the truck or a "road-train". Attaching the seat this way frees you to use valuable space to carry a more items.
- Regularly check anything added to the front or rear end points as sometimes they fall off in a crash or on rough terrain.
- Include some Compound in your toolkit; if the truck is already full, then having Compound allows you to quickly make a beacon to mark where materials or scavenged items are left behind to be collected later.
- A Wind Vane, Generator and/or Solar are ideal basic power sources for a "road-train" because they can be packed away in a attachment slot on your Backpack. This frees additional space to carry more loot (e.g. materials, scavenged items) home.
Vehicles Rovers Shuttles Other
