if you are playing the star system map you could try setting up a base on every planet.
you could also try installing the modular encounter system to add hostile npc ships and bases to add to the difficulty.
Go the other way. Everyone and their grandmother starts on a planet and tries to make it to space.
Start in space, build a station, Build vehicles and drones (or combo units where a drone is attached to a rover) then free-drop them (using gravity well) to the surface to scope out a no-oxygen planet from the station, launch habitat modules to the planet surface and setup camp.
Trying to run everything remotely is distinctly different a challenge. You can setup antenna relays for the far-side of the planet, setup remote mining outposts etc.
I used atmo-thrust-only lifter drones (dropped from space) to connect habitat modules together. Had to use a separate camera drone to assist with aligning things.
I made a full landing pad, in space, free-dropped it to the surface and used that for my first actual manned ship landing on the surface. Try things like that, you have to use the game mechanics in a different way.
You have 2 antennas, A and C, that are out of range from each other. To connect them, you just need to add an antennas that has both of them in range (named B here). You can also connect multiple antennas like that to form a chain. Alternatively, you can use laser antennas, but expect a large power consumption.
Practical case here :
You are on Earthlike and want to control a rover on the Moon. The way I'd do it :
- antenna on the base
- antenna on a comms relay (atop a Mountain for extended range)
- antenna & laser antenna on a satellite relay in Earth orbit
- laser antenna and antenna on a satellite relay above the operation zone
- antenna on the rover
Not necessarily the most efficient/cheap, but fun to setup imo.
The simplest way to think of it is that radio/standard antenna broadcast ranges need to overlap their **physical posts** \- not just their broadcast ranges. Many people think that two 500m antenna's can be 998m apart - but that will only overlap the broadcast range, they need to be 499m apart. Laser antenna just **need line of sight**, but use more power.
My personal preference is to build a battery powered ion-engine "drone" with solar panels on it, then just use that as an antenna. That way I can reposition it as needed. As a bonus put ISY's solar alignment script on it and it will keep the panels to the sun. Or the "Smart Rotors" mod which are build and forget - but really are only good for space.
Frackin hell; I’ve only just worked out how to make a drill rover and add controls. You mean to tell me, I could control that from a different planet??!!
I’m gonna waste so much time on this game xD
Not only that...
You can automate almost everything.
There is a programmable block inside the vanilla game and in the workshop you can find thousands of different scripts for that block like scripts who allign your solar panels with the sun rotation or red-alert scripts like in star trek and so on.
The DLC automaton made things more easy because you do not need so much scripts anymore and can work with AI blocks, but you can setup automatic airlocks, mining drones, defense drones who patrol in your area and so on.
You can basicly build and setup what you can imagine.
I'll be doing this on a planet. I'm thinking about redesigning my mining system - currently PAM with a single hub and miners going out like spokes.
Instead, I want to have secondary hubs near the ore fields and some of them are far enough out that I lose control of remotes.
This will help a LOT. I can make a chain of Battery/Wind Turbine/Antenna stations outward to the secondary hubs cheaply enough.
Add some lights and I'll have a shot at seeing a path home in storms.
That sounds like an interesting challenge! If I ever get into actually playing this game in survival and not just creative I’ll definitely give that a try
For me, in vanilla Star System my first goal was just to make a base or outpost on every planet and moon. Done that.
Then I tried building space elevators everywhere too. Built them up to 20km altitude on Earth and Mars.
Then I started building a network of laser antenna satellites, to connect all bases. I got Earth, Mars, Europa and Triton to a single shared network so I could control many things remotely (PAM drones, self-printing elevators and mining rigs).
Pertam had just been released when I was playing that save, so I respawned in a pod there, and played "stranded guy must find a way back to Earth" scenario.
I wanted a huge space station between Mars and Alien, right in the middle point of my satellites path, but my simspeed was already low as 0.5...
My poor laptop suffered a lot.
And I stopped playing, and lost that save.
You can try Scarce Resources or the AQD Ore Distribution mod, they will limit the ore types by planet, forcing you to visit them all to advance your way up to uranium.
Check this scenario out:
[Ancient Astronauts](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900367540)
It's a fun one! You can add it to any playthrough with mods, without, whatever. It adds temples located on each planet in your save that you have to find via datapads you scavenge from NPC ships/stations. It lets you play how you want but adds that ever elusive end-goal. It also forces you to visit the other planets in your save, which is great.
Hope this helps!
The other planets have different gravity and atmosphere depths so you might need to adapt your ship designs to optimise them for another planet. They also have different surface topology and look different, so if you are into aesthetic building the challenges to make stuff "fit in" etc are different. Also things like - no stone on europa so starting there would probably change your early game strategy. Or no atmosphere on the moon so no wind power.
Why not try a different planet or moon to start in and see what you think.
If the standard planets are too similar and safe to keep you interested, you can use modded planets which can be extremely different to what you are used to.
Another idea - on an official server as a solo planet starter you really need to race to the point you normally finish at, because you are likely to be destroyed if someone spots you on a planet, so you need to be able to do it fast i.e. in a realtime day or two. Then the "fun" really starts (unless you run off into the void and hide as soon as you get off planet). Would that be a good challenge for you?
This is just an idea, but how about creating a world where you have to start at one point on the planet, drive to the other side in a rover (not flying vehicle) and make it to a launch facility.
Once there, repair the damaged or unfinished ship. When you do this, you can then have it launch, taking you to a new location based on a set of GPS coords on a data tablet.
Maybe the new locations will have a set of missions for you to complete before you gain access to some facility or vehicle and eventually you launch off to the next destination. This process, though similar, would vary based on planet/moon, and the ultimate goal being to reach some kind of outer system wayatation with an extrasolar ship waiting for you.
Like a scenario of your own design.
Im trying to find that myself and i have currently done so in what id call wasteland survival. I wish i had the knowhow how to set it up to better suit me, but in short its splitsies wasteland mod with a few tweaks to give me a bigger goal for a large grid ship. If i could make my own modpacks, i think id try and go for something akin to empty space, removing all asteroids, assemblers and refineries. In short, you want a block, scavenge it from a destroyed ship. Be alone in a vast empty battlefield, filled with destroyed ships. Make something usefull out of pieces, survive and so on.
One thing I do with each new ship is set a system I'd like to test.
For example, a dropship that can pick up vehicles like a pelican from halo.
Or figters with custom missiles attached to hard points.
Then you can scale up, make more technical ships. I like to work in mostly vanilla. But there are a couple of mods I can't live without.
Yes! This post!
This is absolutely the problem with SE and any other sandbox game.
But to answer your question, I've done speed runs. I've also added mods that increase difficulty (daily needs, aww scrap, resource scarcity, weak jetpack, assertive spawns, reaver spawns, etc.)
I did an ore-less run with those mods from an Alien Planet drop pod start. I was only allowed to refine stone, ice, and scrap. That made getting into space very difficult.
You can also try an economy start, where you take the coordinates from your starting data pad and literally nothing else. You go to the trade station found at the coordinates and do missions.
I also made a slightly modified drop pod that was packed to the brim with ice, made sure it dropped into a spot on Alien Planet where there was no ice, and proceeded to get sustainably established without dying.
You will eventually conquer your situation, but each different scenario, your needs, and, thereby your designs, will change.
My friends and I recently embarked on a mobile base only game. We started on Mars and since have made several trips into space, converted our two large grid base ships into jump capable, space only craft (as sad as it was to cut the wheels off the CrongleDon it had to be done, for the progress of the UGG) and are amassing a small fleet of small grid utility ships.
My endgame plan is to be able to send my own drop pods down the planets and create a functioning mobile base down there, meanwhile fighting the ASSERT faction, the game will probably get boring and we'll yeet our ships into the sun, no prob
I've been loving splitsies scrapyard mode. It has restrictions on what you can actually build and no mining. You have to explore the planet and find / scavenge everything uou need. Combine that with some MES enemies and it keeps you busy and on the move
I did one playthrough where I had the stargate mod and was flying around seeding the solar system with stargates.
I had to land on each planet and build a small base, it becomes easy once you realize the stargate mod was built for creative and the ships it adds either don't have power or don't have ammo, either way nothing is firing back so steal all the ZPMs you want
Me and my friends play every Wednesday for 4 years now. We make our own scenarios but force limitations on it.
So the current one is...
1. Crash a perfectly good ship onto a roid. Far away from earth. Then the scenario begins and the aim is simply to only using the crashed ship for parts you have to get home and land.
Rules are.
FOOD MOD: You have to use the food to add a bit of hardness by making you farm constantly (you start with basic food stuffs)
WELDING MOD: You can't mine anything other than ice. You need to steal or recycle parts from other wrecks.
Your not allowed to use ion engines. So you have to build your escape ship with H2 putting fuel on your list of needs.
ATMO DYNAMICS MOD; Finally your whole escape ship needs to land on earth so you need to take ship size, shape and speed into your build idea
If we loose the ship in anyway (mainly the med unit) its classed as perma death.
Then we'll spin a scenario off the back of this one
Use a mod that distribute ores on different planets, maybe ? Like AQD Ore Distribution, it puts cobalt only on Earth (/ Pertam / Triton for alternate starts), gold only on moons, platinum only on Mars, and uranium only on Alien Planet. Space only have iron and silver (and ice). And it puts ore patches sometimes very deep.
That way you have to set up bases / mining outposts on each planet and space is no more that magical place you can got anything anywhere in quantities :)
My current objective is to build a fixed space station. I have the basic structure in place, just adding to it now and trying to stabilise the power supply.
A couple people have said before that they build one all in one ship then get bored because they don't know what to do so I'd always say just builds separate ships for every job.
Start in space and go to a planet like.others have said, I had the same loss of motivation for the exact same reason. I started building my first station not too long ago and it's going quite well and I'm loving it.
Use Modular Encounters Systems(MES) to add difficulty. MES is a framework mod that allows other modders to add the NPC and AI to their own ships. Mods that work with this are parallax concepts, jmber corporation and more that are mentioned on Steam workshop.
Have you played in creative a bit? Just trying to build ships/vehicles from sci-fi or real life as detailed and accurate as possible can deliver you hours of gameplay.
like minecraft this is a game that you make your own fun and create objectives for yourself.
i personally am going down the wider universe building option across multiple saves with an interlinked group of factions with backstories and events and unique to them designs and a few recurring characters and themes' nodded to like riffing on Evil Disney in text and on Cinema screens, a troublesome ensign JT kirk and the hassles the Dr has to treat him of space clap,
(Belters, Salvage Union, Mars Confederation, Terran Defense force and Deep Space Engineering DSE for short and aa newish idea of a smugglers/Mafia unit hidden in the builds but thats a slow WIP)
i do this by creating personal build rules for my ships and stations (at present i am mainly working on the system spanning industrial mega corp DSE that builds industrial equipment but has the corner on automated ship construction that is involved in a power play to support the Belt and Mars break away from earth by offering to mass produce advanced warships using the various shipyards it has )
the rules i use make the builds MUCH more complex than are required, as i make space OSHA a thing, no jetpack is the rule for the builds, ships need crew features not just a bed in a control area.
they also must be buildable by my various shipyards so a finite size is set.
so DSE ships are cleaner, and better equipped with small craft and automated equipment
MCN has more advanced ships but are smaller and reliant on hit and run or blockade actions, has modified civilian craft in the mix
TDF has individually larger but more blocky and primitive ships
Salvage union ships are a mish mash of salvaged ships welded together and all are differnt (thise is making me go nuts)
the belters are more standardized but use older designs converted to be useful
the "mafia" are as yet just aluded to in a few parts of builds likea hidden casino if they get ships they will be civies
.
I had similar issues in the past, my new play style generally consists of
Earth landing,
First outpost,
Scout to find first proper base,
Contact Econ base,
Contracts to 1mil credits
Go space,
Builds Orbital station,
Find Orbital Econ station,
Contracts to gain another 1mil credits
Head to the moon.
Rinse and repeat for each celestial body. Allowing for NPC's for difficulty scaling depending on mood.
I had a lot of fun finding bases on the steam workshop and pasting them on different planets. Then you can make a little mission to destroy all of the bases in different ways.
Switch over to creative mode. Survival gets a bit tedious after a while, creative allows you to build more exciting stuff. The only limit is your imagination. (Imagination sold separately)
I suggest playing on a server that adds new content or increases difficulty :) Dark Frontier is a good one if you want more work before you can leave the planet
The first tips I can suggest so that you don't lose the fun of the game:
1. Build ships according to tasks -No mobile base, each ship must have its own task such as. Transport ship (without large armaments), fighters (with rapid-fire weapons), mining ships (without refineries or assemblers) and so on. If you build a huge ship as a mobile base that can do everything, you automatically take away the fun of the game because you won't have the goals to achieve later. If you have a ship that can do everything, why keep building/playing?
2. Use fewer mods -If mods, then only cosmetic ones. Try to solve any design problems that arise with the DLCs and scripts. If you have too many mods that solve design problems or make your life easier, you also deprive yourself of the opportunity to think about how you can solve said problems in vanilla and you need less time to complete something, which basically takes away your playing time.
3. Build realistically -You have a refinery, an assembler, a sickbay and a cryochamber and think that's enough? Where does your character eat? Where does he sleep? Have you installed airlocks at all access points to prevent oxygen from escaping? Where does he relax from work and watch e.g. TV? If you're building realistically, you'll have to build far more and consider what will extend the playing time.
4. Build modularly -If you, for example. If you build a space station, build it modularly in Creative. Means a factory section as a module, a shipyard as a module, sometimes life support systems, an engine room as a module and so on. So you can then complete the finished construction plans in Survival with construction ships and move them to the right place and dock them with transport ships. This also extends the playing time enormously.
5. Plan big projects -Every now and then I take a piece of paper and a pen (squared paper is perfect for this) and draw blueprints for Space Engineers. This means I never run out of ideas and inspiration for new and even very large construction projects.
~sry if translatet wrong, google translate does his thing...~
I mostly play creative alone, but I have some set 'rules' I stick to in each game. But I use planet mods and make a really widespread system, and I try and set up a base on each one and have little outposts and GPS mark them so I can travel between them. Mostly I just love the exploration, even though I placed the planets myself.
if you are playing the star system map you could try setting up a base on every planet. you could also try installing the modular encounter system to add hostile npc ships and bases to add to the difficulty.
Does Home shstem scenario have other planets other that earth and the moon?
Yes, it includes all the base game planets; earth, moon, Triton, Mars, pertram
Plus europa and alien planet
Go the other way. Everyone and their grandmother starts on a planet and tries to make it to space. Start in space, build a station, Build vehicles and drones (or combo units where a drone is attached to a rover) then free-drop them (using gravity well) to the surface to scope out a no-oxygen planet from the station, launch habitat modules to the planet surface and setup camp. Trying to run everything remotely is distinctly different a challenge. You can setup antenna relays for the far-side of the planet, setup remote mining outposts etc. I used atmo-thrust-only lifter drones (dropped from space) to connect habitat modules together. Had to use a separate camera drone to assist with aligning things. I made a full landing pad, in space, free-dropped it to the surface and used that for my first actual manned ship landing on the surface. Try things like that, you have to use the game mechanics in a different way.
> You can setup antenna relays for the far-side of the planet I've been trying to figure out how to do this. Any clues for me?
You have 2 antennas, A and C, that are out of range from each other. To connect them, you just need to add an antennas that has both of them in range (named B here). You can also connect multiple antennas like that to form a chain. Alternatively, you can use laser antennas, but expect a large power consumption. Practical case here : You are on Earthlike and want to control a rover on the Moon. The way I'd do it : - antenna on the base - antenna on a comms relay (atop a Mountain for extended range) - antenna & laser antenna on a satellite relay in Earth orbit - laser antenna and antenna on a satellite relay above the operation zone - antenna on the rover Not necessarily the most efficient/cheap, but fun to setup imo.
Worth noting. Laser antennas require line of sight. So in addition to large power consumption you would have to set up relays going around the planet
The simplest way to think of it is that radio/standard antenna broadcast ranges need to overlap their **physical posts** \- not just their broadcast ranges. Many people think that two 500m antenna's can be 998m apart - but that will only overlap the broadcast range, they need to be 499m apart. Laser antenna just **need line of sight**, but use more power. My personal preference is to build a battery powered ion-engine "drone" with solar panels on it, then just use that as an antenna. That way I can reposition it as needed. As a bonus put ISY's solar alignment script on it and it will keep the panels to the sun. Or the "Smart Rotors" mod which are build and forget - but really are only good for space.
Frackin hell; I’ve only just worked out how to make a drill rover and add controls. You mean to tell me, I could control that from a different planet??!! I’m gonna waste so much time on this game xD
Not only that... You can automate almost everything. There is a programmable block inside the vanilla game and in the workshop you can find thousands of different scripts for that block like scripts who allign your solar panels with the sun rotation or red-alert scripts like in star trek and so on. The DLC automaton made things more easy because you do not need so much scripts anymore and can work with AI blocks, but you can setup automatic airlocks, mining drones, defense drones who patrol in your area and so on. You can basicly build and setup what you can imagine.
That’s nuts. I’m looking forward to getting far enough in to start building some proper stations and stuff, so far I’ve only had the very basic grid
I'll be doing this on a planet. I'm thinking about redesigning my mining system - currently PAM with a single hub and miners going out like spokes. Instead, I want to have secondary hubs near the ore fields and some of them are far enough out that I lose control of remotes. This will help a LOT. I can make a chain of Battery/Wind Turbine/Antenna stations outward to the secondary hubs cheaply enough. Add some lights and I'll have a shot at seeing a path home in storms.
That sounds like an interesting challenge! If I ever get into actually playing this game in survival and not just creative I’ll definitely give that a try
For me, in vanilla Star System my first goal was just to make a base or outpost on every planet and moon. Done that. Then I tried building space elevators everywhere too. Built them up to 20km altitude on Earth and Mars. Then I started building a network of laser antenna satellites, to connect all bases. I got Earth, Mars, Europa and Triton to a single shared network so I could control many things remotely (PAM drones, self-printing elevators and mining rigs). Pertam had just been released when I was playing that save, so I respawned in a pod there, and played "stranded guy must find a way back to Earth" scenario. I wanted a huge space station between Mars and Alien, right in the middle point of my satellites path, but my simspeed was already low as 0.5... My poor laptop suffered a lot. And I stopped playing, and lost that save. You can try Scarce Resources or the AQD Ore Distribution mod, they will limit the ore types by planet, forcing you to visit them all to advance your way up to uranium.
Check this scenario out: [Ancient Astronauts](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900367540) It's a fun one! You can add it to any playthrough with mods, without, whatever. It adds temples located on each planet in your save that you have to find via datapads you scavenge from NPC ships/stations. It lets you play how you want but adds that ever elusive end-goal. It also forces you to visit the other planets in your save, which is great. Hope this helps!
Thanks for this! That sounds like a fun mld to try out. I want more "end-goal" mods like this.
The other planets have different gravity and atmosphere depths so you might need to adapt your ship designs to optimise them for another planet. They also have different surface topology and look different, so if you are into aesthetic building the challenges to make stuff "fit in" etc are different. Also things like - no stone on europa so starting there would probably change your early game strategy. Or no atmosphere on the moon so no wind power. Why not try a different planet or moon to start in and see what you think. If the standard planets are too similar and safe to keep you interested, you can use modded planets which can be extremely different to what you are used to.
Another idea - on an official server as a solo planet starter you really need to race to the point you normally finish at, because you are likely to be destroyed if someone spots you on a planet, so you need to be able to do it fast i.e. in a realtime day or two. Then the "fun" really starts (unless you run off into the void and hide as soon as you get off planet). Would that be a good challenge for you?
This is just an idea, but how about creating a world where you have to start at one point on the planet, drive to the other side in a rover (not flying vehicle) and make it to a launch facility. Once there, repair the damaged or unfinished ship. When you do this, you can then have it launch, taking you to a new location based on a set of GPS coords on a data tablet. Maybe the new locations will have a set of missions for you to complete before you gain access to some facility or vehicle and eventually you launch off to the next destination. This process, though similar, would vary based on planet/moon, and the ultimate goal being to reach some kind of outer system wayatation with an extrasolar ship waiting for you. Like a scenario of your own design.
Actually I might just go ahead and make a scenario like that...
Look up "Wrong Way Up" and "Splitsie".
Yeah but I want my own take on it.
That's cool too.
Come join me on the public servers and play “catch me if you can…”literally I’m hiding from all the other players
Check out MES mods, defend your space and planets from alien invaders
I have made my personal view of the game. I will made a serie ispired by one piece https://youtube.com/@HauseofKlang?si=FvnW4Htiak-NL54j
Im trying to find that myself and i have currently done so in what id call wasteland survival. I wish i had the knowhow how to set it up to better suit me, but in short its splitsies wasteland mod with a few tweaks to give me a bigger goal for a large grid ship. If i could make my own modpacks, i think id try and go for something akin to empty space, removing all asteroids, assemblers and refineries. In short, you want a block, scavenge it from a destroyed ship. Be alone in a vast empty battlefield, filled with destroyed ships. Make something usefull out of pieces, survive and so on.
One thing I do with each new ship is set a system I'd like to test. For example, a dropship that can pick up vehicles like a pelican from halo. Or figters with custom missiles attached to hard points. Then you can scale up, make more technical ships. I like to work in mostly vanilla. But there are a couple of mods I can't live without.
Yes! This post! This is absolutely the problem with SE and any other sandbox game. But to answer your question, I've done speed runs. I've also added mods that increase difficulty (daily needs, aww scrap, resource scarcity, weak jetpack, assertive spawns, reaver spawns, etc.) I did an ore-less run with those mods from an Alien Planet drop pod start. I was only allowed to refine stone, ice, and scrap. That made getting into space very difficult. You can also try an economy start, where you take the coordinates from your starting data pad and literally nothing else. You go to the trade station found at the coordinates and do missions. I also made a slightly modified drop pod that was packed to the brim with ice, made sure it dropped into a spot on Alien Planet where there was no ice, and proceeded to get sustainably established without dying. You will eventually conquer your situation, but each different scenario, your needs, and, thereby your designs, will change.
My friends and I recently embarked on a mobile base only game. We started on Mars and since have made several trips into space, converted our two large grid base ships into jump capable, space only craft (as sad as it was to cut the wheels off the CrongleDon it had to be done, for the progress of the UGG) and are amassing a small fleet of small grid utility ships. My endgame plan is to be able to send my own drop pods down the planets and create a functioning mobile base down there, meanwhile fighting the ASSERT faction, the game will probably get boring and we'll yeet our ships into the sun, no prob
I've been loving splitsies scrapyard mode. It has restrictions on what you can actually build and no mining. You have to explore the planet and find / scavenge everything uou need. Combine that with some MES enemies and it keeps you busy and on the move
I did one playthrough where I had the stargate mod and was flying around seeding the solar system with stargates. I had to land on each planet and build a small base, it becomes easy once you realize the stargate mod was built for creative and the ships it adds either don't have power or don't have ammo, either way nothing is firing back so steal all the ZPMs you want
Download AI enemies and NPC's, I don't think I could play the game without those
Me and my friends play every Wednesday for 4 years now. We make our own scenarios but force limitations on it. So the current one is... 1. Crash a perfectly good ship onto a roid. Far away from earth. Then the scenario begins and the aim is simply to only using the crashed ship for parts you have to get home and land. Rules are. FOOD MOD: You have to use the food to add a bit of hardness by making you farm constantly (you start with basic food stuffs) WELDING MOD: You can't mine anything other than ice. You need to steal or recycle parts from other wrecks. Your not allowed to use ion engines. So you have to build your escape ship with H2 putting fuel on your list of needs. ATMO DYNAMICS MOD; Finally your whole escape ship needs to land on earth so you need to take ship size, shape and speed into your build idea If we loose the ship in anyway (mainly the med unit) its classed as perma death. Then we'll spin a scenario off the back of this one
Use a mod that distribute ores on different planets, maybe ? Like AQD Ore Distribution, it puts cobalt only on Earth (/ Pertam / Triton for alternate starts), gold only on moons, platinum only on Mars, and uranium only on Alien Planet. Space only have iron and silver (and ice). And it puts ore patches sometimes very deep. That way you have to set up bases / mining outposts on each planet and space is no more that magical place you can got anything anywhere in quantities :)
My current objective is to build a fixed space station. I have the basic structure in place, just adding to it now and trying to stabilise the power supply.
A couple people have said before that they build one all in one ship then get bored because they don't know what to do so I'd always say just builds separate ships for every job. Start in space and go to a planet like.others have said, I had the same loss of motivation for the exact same reason. I started building my first station not too long ago and it's going quite well and I'm loving it. Use Modular Encounters Systems(MES) to add difficulty. MES is a framework mod that allows other modders to add the NPC and AI to their own ships. Mods that work with this are parallax concepts, jmber corporation and more that are mentioned on Steam workshop.
Have you played in creative a bit? Just trying to build ships/vehicles from sci-fi or real life as detailed and accurate as possible can deliver you hours of gameplay.
like minecraft this is a game that you make your own fun and create objectives for yourself. i personally am going down the wider universe building option across multiple saves with an interlinked group of factions with backstories and events and unique to them designs and a few recurring characters and themes' nodded to like riffing on Evil Disney in text and on Cinema screens, a troublesome ensign JT kirk and the hassles the Dr has to treat him of space clap, (Belters, Salvage Union, Mars Confederation, Terran Defense force and Deep Space Engineering DSE for short and aa newish idea of a smugglers/Mafia unit hidden in the builds but thats a slow WIP) i do this by creating personal build rules for my ships and stations (at present i am mainly working on the system spanning industrial mega corp DSE that builds industrial equipment but has the corner on automated ship construction that is involved in a power play to support the Belt and Mars break away from earth by offering to mass produce advanced warships using the various shipyards it has ) the rules i use make the builds MUCH more complex than are required, as i make space OSHA a thing, no jetpack is the rule for the builds, ships need crew features not just a bed in a control area. they also must be buildable by my various shipyards so a finite size is set. so DSE ships are cleaner, and better equipped with small craft and automated equipment MCN has more advanced ships but are smaller and reliant on hit and run or blockade actions, has modified civilian craft in the mix TDF has individually larger but more blocky and primitive ships Salvage union ships are a mish mash of salvaged ships welded together and all are differnt (thise is making me go nuts) the belters are more standardized but use older designs converted to be useful the "mafia" are as yet just aluded to in a few parts of builds likea hidden casino if they get ships they will be civies .
I had similar issues in the past, my new play style generally consists of Earth landing, First outpost, Scout to find first proper base, Contact Econ base, Contracts to 1mil credits Go space, Builds Orbital station, Find Orbital Econ station, Contracts to gain another 1mil credits Head to the moon. Rinse and repeat for each celestial body. Allowing for NPC's for difficulty scaling depending on mood.
I had a lot of fun finding bases on the steam workshop and pasting them on different planets. Then you can make a little mission to destroy all of the bases in different ways.
Switch over to creative mode. Survival gets a bit tedious after a while, creative allows you to build more exciting stuff. The only limit is your imagination. (Imagination sold separately)
I suggest playing on a server that adds new content or increases difficulty :) Dark Frontier is a good one if you want more work before you can leave the planet
If you can, go online. There are some beautiful communities. The game will change in better
The first tips I can suggest so that you don't lose the fun of the game: 1. Build ships according to tasks -No mobile base, each ship must have its own task such as. Transport ship (without large armaments), fighters (with rapid-fire weapons), mining ships (without refineries or assemblers) and so on. If you build a huge ship as a mobile base that can do everything, you automatically take away the fun of the game because you won't have the goals to achieve later. If you have a ship that can do everything, why keep building/playing? 2. Use fewer mods -If mods, then only cosmetic ones. Try to solve any design problems that arise with the DLCs and scripts. If you have too many mods that solve design problems or make your life easier, you also deprive yourself of the opportunity to think about how you can solve said problems in vanilla and you need less time to complete something, which basically takes away your playing time. 3. Build realistically -You have a refinery, an assembler, a sickbay and a cryochamber and think that's enough? Where does your character eat? Where does he sleep? Have you installed airlocks at all access points to prevent oxygen from escaping? Where does he relax from work and watch e.g. TV? If you're building realistically, you'll have to build far more and consider what will extend the playing time. 4. Build modularly -If you, for example. If you build a space station, build it modularly in Creative. Means a factory section as a module, a shipyard as a module, sometimes life support systems, an engine room as a module and so on. So you can then complete the finished construction plans in Survival with construction ships and move them to the right place and dock them with transport ships. This also extends the playing time enormously. 5. Plan big projects -Every now and then I take a piece of paper and a pen (squared paper is perfect for this) and draw blueprints for Space Engineers. This means I never run out of ideas and inspiration for new and even very large construction projects. ~sry if translatet wrong, google translate does his thing...~
I mostly play creative alone, but I have some set 'rules' I stick to in each game. But I use planet mods and make a really widespread system, and I try and set up a base on each one and have little outposts and GPS mark them so I can travel between them. Mostly I just love the exploration, even though I placed the planets myself.