I considered that, but the problem is that I cannot properly estimate it. For example, if you'd try to move from the end point to the artifact, travel time would be infinite, but you couldn't possibly know without trying.

Did you wait for the actions to reach the line where it says "now"? There's quite a bit of lag between scheduling an action and it being executed. This is a core mechanic of the game as the planet is a few light-hours away and thus signals takes a lot of time to travel between you and the rover.

It might also be that while reading the instructions, the rover's battery died. In that case the energy cell would read 0% and the system log would indicate "Energy cell critical. Shutting down". There's a restart button there as well.

Figuring out why the rover is not responding is an intended part of the game, but lacking a proper tutorial section, this doesn't work when it happens right at the start.

I had planned to make multiple scenario's which ramped up in difficulty, so that the player has time to figure out the controls at the start in a level that is basically drive from A to B. Though adding a tutorial popup that explains how to do that is definitely a good idea.

The game is quite complex for a gamejam and I didn't think I would be able to finish it in time. Though I'm glad I tried as I did succeed in implementing the basic idea of the game.

I did the fake 3D thing because I wanted to try it out and I think it looks cool. Initially I also had planned to have more layers, so you could see elevation, but in my tests the difference was barely noticeable, so I scratched that idea. As it currently is, it indeed does not add much to the game. I feared that in 2D the image would be too flat and that you could not make out the edges of the cliffs, but with the shadow in place it works quite well. Here's an image of the 2D map:

I've added information about the game's controls and goal in the description. I hope this helps.