I absolutely love the idea of this! I haven't gotten a chance to see all of it yet, as the glitch I see mentioned below happened to me and I could harvest resources all throughout the rover journey. I'll include a screenshot of the victory in case it helps. I'd like to see this idea expanded, and believe that with some polishing this could be better than Increlution. Keep it up!
(As you can see, I still have access to "Take Water Pouch", and "Synthesise Food", even though I took the power cell and left the start. I'll replay and attempt to figure out what triggered the glitch...)
Edit: Naturally dying seems to fix the problem for the next loops if it occurs.