Uf.. Right now the game sounds like just moving a camera around and be good at the game for no good reason. I for one need to struggle a little to achieve a feeling of accomplishment. I want to turn a few knobs to be able to fly, I want to prepare to hit the atmosphere just right to be able to land on a planet..etc etc. I'm disappointed, but after having to have endured the empty techno-blabla from the devs lately, and little else, it kinda was expected.
Disclaimer: I'm a bit on the sim-side of games, that's just me, I knew NMS would be slightly arcadey, just not this much.. so I'm sorry for daring to have an opinion that is not yours. But that's good for you kinda, so be happy![]()
It sounds like you want something that is more focused on the flying mechanics. Their focus is more on the exploration and trying to get from here to there safely. They've been toting this game as an exploration game so that really shouldn't be a surprise. So their focus is more going to be on the crafting, finding stuff, escaping/fighting aggressive things.
Also, the more wide scoping a game is, the less it can focus on individual mechanics of each thing it allows. Especially if you have a very limited button set. Add on they want the focus to be exploration and it sounds like they don't want to discourage people from being able to by game mechanics focused more on flying/combat that could chase people away who just want to explore.
I think this game may not be for you if the whole being an explorer isn't the big focus for you for the game.