somehow I am torn in several directions in my thoughts about the game, just as the game feels torn in several directions. this post isn't really well formed and is going to kind of be stream of consciousness, ymmv
on the one hand it really is the nicest "finding a cool new planet to wander around" engine yet, it's vast, there are so many places
and yet, the curse of procedural generation is that it can only have a human-countable number of variations outside of like, colour palette, and even then you want to restrict it for aesthetic reasons
so almost every system has a space station, almost every system has people in it, you "discover" planets but there are people living there already
it feels flatly ignorant and offensive in how it embodies the colonialist vibe of "oh these people don't count as people, this is mine now"
then there's what feels like the core gameplay loop
go to new system, scan the planets, maybe drop on a couple of them and poke around, find some buildings or animals, go to the space station, get missions to scan/kill/steal things, do mission, scan and kill animals because the one guy gave you a mission to do each and they didn't say anything about keeping those numbers separate, go back and cash it in, jump to the next system
it's… not really very fun, and honestly the missions are just kind of nasty on the face of them
so, okay, put that aside, what about freighters? they're kind of a cool opportunity to do something different - you can assemble a fleet, send them on missions and then… wait two to twenty-four hours for them to complete the missions, and then go back to your freighter to reap the rewards
these systems don't really interact - sure, some resources you get from the murdering and also documenting species missions might get you resources for freighter upgrades or expansions or at the very minimum get you some fuel, but like, so what?
frankly the most fun I've had is playing the expeditions, and those run for short, restrictive segments of time, I've missed most of them, and in many cases they require/encourage engaging with the multiplayer, which once again is in stark contrast with the "sparsely inhabited, lonely universe" vibe the game seems(? sometimes) to want to cultivate because the universe is fucking teeming with people
IDK, maybe that's a reasonable way to play, just jump in when there's an expedition and then ignore it the rest of the time but augh I just wish it were a game with more to say or more to do, it just kind of falls flat for me between these little moments of sparkling wonder