You’ll be able to land and drive around in a little car, looking for stuff.

https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/horizons

However, it’s another £40 (£30 if you are an existing player).

Ohhh - I might have to think about that - although having said that I have not played for a good 6 weeks or so (due to an injury and not wanting to make it worse) so when I go back to it I will be a bit rusty

You used to be able to do planetary landings in Frontier Elite IIRC but it was basically just the same as docking at a space station.
There was no 'drive about in a little car' shenanigans going on. Plus £30/40 for that as a feature seems rather steep unless they put in an awful lot of work on the planetary environments.

If I want that I'll just buy 'No Man's Sky'.

The Making of Elite - what looks like a Channel 5 documentary about the original game.
The Making of ELITE

Gents, do I need a joystick to enjoy the game (with or without planetary landings)?

Frankly, yes. Although not necessarily a super expensive one. I got one for I think about 40 quid. It's just so much easier to fly the ships with a stick than with kb&mouse.

I got a controller for around a tenner from Maplin ( this one: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/speedlink-str ... ller-a24lc ) which does the job well. Frankly, it’s not as good as a PS4 controller, but it does the job and works well with the game. It has an analogue switch on the front - make sure any controller you buy does analogue output. Some look like they will, but in practice don’t.

Treat yourself to a HOTAS if playing on PC

http://www.yoyotech.co.uk//thrustmaster-t-flight-hotas-x-pc?var=10867&utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=purenet_feed&gclid=Cj0KEQjwsb-vBRCLj7TvqpGx_MoBEiQALgFGniA0Qd26Md2rVAkBXpkdR9DOhoCnSZESC7k1YT9fQjsaAgj38P8HAQ

Also if you don't want to buy from YoYoTech I think Argos and Amazon have some in stock. They tend to go out of stock quite regularly though.

Thats the one I have and its really good