I feel you. I just hit 20 hours and I probably didn't start to fully realize how to find different kinds of content deliberately until about hour 15 after I'd got some of the faction stuff started and explored enough planets to understand how to find certain side quests.

For the first while my natural instinct just had me exploring all of the cities and stations, just talking with people and picking up masses of side quests, then I hit a point where I started actually doing them, because I was burning myself out on walking and talking.

The non-scaling level of systems is interesting, figuring that out helped me to be able to do quests that I was leveled for and weren't super spongey, I figured out the structure of the random quest board quests so I could partake in FPS shooting, ship shooting, cargo running, or more narrative driven side quests depending on my mood.

Figuring out that the trade authority (only the manned shops, not the kiosks) is your stolen goods fence meant I could really start stealing in earnest, and the decrease in environmental items that are lootable, along with the decrease in lootable homes and apartments means stealing opportunities are harder to come by.

Even still, after being pretty cheap at level 20 I'm at about 120,000 credits, which seems close to enough to fully build my own ship, which I'm about to eagerly do in my next session. Once I've got a ship built I'll want to start and get into landing on less colonized planets and figure out the outposts and such, where I can pivot to hiring people from the taverns and getting into that whole side of the game.

I think because of the amount of things you could do, the amount of them that are basically impossible to do from the outset due to money (ship and outpost building), and the way the game doesn't guide or explain things well, it was really easy for me to create my own boring rut where I just walked and talked and ran away from tough enemies because I didn't realize I picked up a quest that was in or lead to a high level system.

For instance, I knew you could board ships, I had no idea that I needed the systems targeting skill to target engines to even do that at all, the skill description didn't mention it, and the early game mission that forces you to board doesn't require you to have the skill, you just board when the ship is supposed to "die". I was also initially upset random items couldn't be broken down into materials, but then I realized some materials can just be found as lootables, same for some craftable components.

All told, as I play more I'm coming around to it all more, but it'll probably take another ten or 20 hours before I fully understand all the systems and can make a judgment on if I like it more, less, or the same as Fallout 4, which I also loved.

I found it took a long time to really get rolling. On the other hand I'm 70 hours in now and keep finding more depth and things to do and mechanics I haven't even explored, it sometimes is a bit daunting how much there is to do in it.

Make sure to also give the Freestar Rangers and UC Vanguard mission lines a try; they are both long and excellent: FSC Rangers is a love-letter to Spaghetti Westerns, and Vanguards line is a mini-Starship Troopers.