Moonlander

Moonlander

Cost	Free
Rank	Moon Public Event Reward (400 points)

Moonlander is one of the vehicles available in Hill Climb Racing 2. It is a unique vehicle which is obtainable only during the Moon Events.

Overview[]

Explore Alien worlds with this shape-shifting six-wheeler.

The Moonlander is an all-terrain vehicle with a large body and various supports for the wheels. It has built-in Thrusters that can be upgraded to match the power of the Tuning part Thrusters. However, it does have the slowest top speed in the game, only going up to 50.86km/h (31.60mph or 14.13m/s) in normal mode (without Mastery, see below, but still is the slowest though), making it less reliable for winning races and even becomes an issue in Adventure. The Acceleration on Moonlander is quick and powerful, and the "boost" is max, but the rev speed of the boost can be upgraded from 400 to 800. To mitigate the low top speed, using Afterburner or Coin Boost can slightly increase the top speed, but unfortunately some parts like Wheelie Boost and Fume Boost are very weak, even at max level.

The Moonlander had the lowest distances in almost every map in adventure before Mastery, due to its lack of parts, really low speed and Thrusters that used a lot of fuel. This resulted in it being unappealing to use in Adventure. Also, in Cups, it is not recommended, due to the low speed and lack of good parts like Overcharged Turbo, Fuel Boost and Nitro. However, in Time Trials, the vehicle has always been good because of the powerful Thrusters, impressive 50 second fuel duration, and few powerful tuning parts.

The Moonlander features a B.R.A.I.N. module that turns the shape of the vehicle into one of five states, and the lights have an additional sixth state:

Blue (Speed form), which lifts the rear wheels after driving on a flat surface for a few seconds as fast as possible and increases speed by an estimated 40% once the B.R.A.I.N. is maxed. Will cause wheelies until B.R.A.I.N. is at least level 10. Can be activated before the start of a race, but decreases acceleration. Start Boost will fix this.
Green (Climb form), which the middle wheel will come lose for all the wheels to stay in the ground and lead to a easier climbing. Can't be used on vertical slopes until B.R.A.I.N. and Grip are at least level 8. Useful for hilly maps.
Yellow (Falling form), which extends the wheels a bit to absorb a hard landing (on a flat surface), which works similar to downforce. You should be careful, because if you land wrong, the Moonlander will tip over and may cause a driver down.
Red-Pink (Brake form), which retracts the wheels a bit to brake better. If you don't have your B.R.A.I.N. highly upgraded and you press the brake button for more than 2 seconds the Moonlander will become unstable and may cause a driver down.
White (flight form) If you have upgraded your B.R.A.I.N. and Thrusters to maximum and keep the pedals pressed until the race starts, the wheel hooks of the vehicle will open and the lights will turn white to show that this mode is activated. However, if you run out of fuel and/or fall to the ground in this mode, the run is over and will cause an immediate Driver Down.
A state of red flashing lights, which serves only as a warning when the vehicle is moving/falling extremely fast and it becomes unstable. This doesn't change the vehicle shape.

The Blue speed form is good for racing and wheelies, as it locks in the speed, and it can stay stable and remain drivable on its back 2 wheels. The green climbing form is good for Adventure, as it can climb super steep hills, or even "walls" in this form. The red braking form is also useful when needing to brake fast after a downhill or when a pit is coming up. Also, braking lowers the vehicle, making the immediate ascent up steep hills much smoother.

Yellow fall form just allows the vehicle to land smoother, but unfortunately, Moonlander has a bad habit of getting stuck in this form while driving on top of obstacles, like City containers, Reef bubble tubes, Glacier bones, Gloomvale logs and mushrooms, Overspill cars, Arena gears, and Cuptown buildings' roofs.

The Moonlander is composed of 2 breakable parts: The camera/light and the cabin. The camera/light is decorational, and the cabin is somewhat tall, but keeps the driver safe from impacts and propels the vehicle significantly with its ejection function. The ejection function, however, has a single use. This basically is removing the cabin, but pushes the vehicle in the direction it comes off in.

Moonlander has the least parts in HCR2, only having 9 parts, after Hot Rod received Nitro.

No Overcharged Turbo or Heavyweight because of the shape of the vehicle,
No Winter Tires because of its B.R.A.I.N. and already insane grip (1200),
No Rollcage because of its cabin,
No Wings because of the vehicle's mechanics,
No Fuel Boost because it wouldn't work that well,
No Jump Shocks because of the wheels' shape,
No Spoiler because of the vehicle's shape and the mechanics,
No Nitro because of the vehicle's mechanics, it couldn't charge if using the detaching wheels method, and it would be weak anyway,
And obviously, No Thrusters tuning part because it's already on the vehicle.

The amount of parts the vehicle lacks means that the vehicle power adds up only to 328.

*The Fume Boost was added in the 1.51 update, and increased the Vehicle Power from 308 to 328.

NOTE: If you press and hold both pedals for 1 second before starting a race, then the Moonlander will change to a permanent speed form. This only works in races and is recommended for flat surfaces, not hilly ones. This feature is also very good for using Moonlander in Wheelie Events since the 2 back wheels shift in a Wheelie position if you are driving on them.

IF you have both Thrusters and B.R.A.I.N. at max level, and if you hold both pedals before the count of 2 at the start of a race, then the wheels will unhook. The downside of this mode is that the driver will die if they touch the ground (unless you have Dome Glide Mastery). However, landing on oxygen tubes, Gloomvale logs, and the B.R.A.I.N chip will not kill the driver, but only from small heights. This is recommended for use in a lunar race i.e. the Moon Time Attack Events. And with all Masteries turned on, it is even used in some Time Trials maps such as On The Rocks, Crazy Climb or Under the Cliff, but is incredibly useful on Rocky maps and is a top choice for hard custom maps and hard Community Showcase maps.

Mastery[]

In the 1.61.0 Update, Fingersoft added 3 new buffs for Moonlander. Moonlander was the 2nd vehicle to receive this feature. These buffs massively improve the performance of this vehicle.

Here are Moonlander's masteries:

Mastery	Description	Gained changes
Eco Thrust	Decreased thruster fuel consumption	Fuel Consumption: 22.0% -> 12.0%
Overdrive	Increased top speed	Power: 250 -> 325
Dome Glide	Allow ground contact when flying with dome
Extra Part	Unlocks the 4th tuning part slot	+1 Tuning Slot

XP required for each level: 50,000 (was 100,000 very shortly when mastery was first released, then changed to 50,000 on an update the same day)

Additional XP gaining method: Use the Thrusters.

About Moonlander's masteries: The 1st mastery, Eco Thrust, essentially lowers the fuel consumption when Thrusters are used. This allows them to work for longer, which is super helpful in some harder structures in Adventure where Thrusters are required and can allow for longer distance jumps and better times in Time Trials. The 2nd mastery, Overdrive, provides a big speed boost to the vehicle. Since Moonlander was originally a very slow ground vehicle, this mastery makes a HUGE difference. The first 2 buffs greatly help in both Adventure and Cups, and it definitely can improve the original records by a lot. The 3rd mastery is extremely good for Moon-themed and Long Jump races during certain Team Events & Public Events, as well as the short cups tracks. Not only that, its very good in hard Community Showcases, but is completely useless in Adventure. The 4th mastery is actually not that great because of the vehicle's major lack of good parts, which limits the part options, and doesn't make a huge difference in records.

1st Mastery bug (Fixed):[]

When Mastery was first released on Moonlander, it led to an unintended feature being discovered. When using the Eco Thrust Mastery Level combined with Level 1, 2, or 3 Thrusters, instead of consuming fuel as expected, the Thrusters actually reversed the fuel consumption, savubg fuel when Thrusters were active, which allowed players to extend their drive time significantly. By keeping the Thrusters continuously active, the vehicle could operate for an impressive 60-92.5 seconds without needing any fuel. Of course level 1 was the best option.

This unintended feature massively improved Moonlander's performance in Adventure Mode (notably in the Sky Rock Outpost and Rustbucket Reef maps where you could fly over the whole map & get long distances easily), as well as Moon Long Jump Events, where it can get 1000m+ jumps, and even bypass the distance trigger, allowing it to touch the ground without it counting. Moonlander was even able to get 10km in every map except Canyon Arena, and 5km in Forest Trials!! Basically, Moonlander went from being the worst adventure vehicle in the game to being one of the best, in just a few weeks!

It was patched in the next update, which unfortunately means that all Moonlander Adventure records set in all maps before the patch are now impossible to beat. Moonlander ironically went from being one of the best, to once again being the worst in Adventure. It can't get over half the 10kms even with Mastery, only Forest, City, Mountain, Reef, Desert, and maybe Sky Rock Outpost. Fingersoft didn't remove the glitch Moonlander records like they did with the overpowered old Minibus records, for some reason.

Customization[]

See Vehicle Paints list for pictures and more information.

The Moonlander has 10 paints and 5 different wheels that can be obtained (VIP paint and wheels aren't included, VIP subscription required.) After obtained from the Moon Event, it has free white-yellow, green-yellow, and white-teal paints and one wheels Customization to start with.

Trivia[]

Moonlander consists of a fictional vehicle, as in Hill Climb Racing. Its differences from the first game are: It does not have arms on the front, it contains a cabin, it has a B.R.A.I.N module, it has a low top speed, the Thrusters provide thrust according to the direction it turns, the Thrusters run for a shorter time (almost 1/7 of the time that the original HCR's Moonlander's Thrusters last) it has a satellite and camera system on top of the cabin, and it has headlights. However, the vehicle has the word K.A.S.A. on it, just like in the original Hill Climb Racing. It is located under the cabin, and this is a reference to the space company N.A.S.A.
Moonlander is the only vehicle to have a special garage platform and to be unlocked from an exclusive event theme.