Anybody play "Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak"?
If you want "Big Tonka toys trundling around in the desert", that's your game.
Must admit, I wouldn't mind having to locate mobile bases on a planet's surface and then land on them while they're moving in ED.
Anything that'd make the ED universe seem more "alive" would be fine with me.
Course, if they never managed to get NPCs to drive SRVs across a planet's surface, I don't see this happening any time soon.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RkPcWYZllk