One random idea - have a "portable" version of the artifact that you can hook up to pods in the bases. Once you've set a pod up, instead of restarting from the beginning, you restart from wherever you last set the artifact. You would have to detach it from the pod to take it to the next base, and if you die without it being attached you go back to the beginning at Talos (no progress lost). You would only get experience from things you actually do. Your inventory and everything else is "saved" at the point at which you connect the artifact to the pod.