I drive the short trip back to my base, park my truck close enough to one of the buildings for the cable to attach, and offload the red blob from the back of my buggy. It looks like a thorned vegetable and I plug it into my research station, which is receiving power via cables from the solar panel on the back of my truck. When the research is complete, I will have the knowledge of which resources I need in order for my 3D printer to create a drill head, which I can then attach to a vehicle and use to cut paths through the fully deformable terrain.
Astroneer [official site] is a survive-and-craft game like many others, but it throws out a lot of the cruft and grind. I played it and suddenly it was five hours later, the intervening period a blur of pretty landscapes and achievable goals.