I was like you, and at first I enjoyed it a bit. But then I realized that the game only has one goal: get resources to fly to the next planet. That's it. Nothing else. And then you start to see how 90% of your time is simply getting resources to the fly to the next planet to get resources to fly to the next planet to get resources to fly to the next planet, etc. Its a procedural terrain generation tool with heavy-handed resource gathering. Your ship can only lift off the ground a few times before needing to be refueled. Its absolutely ridiculous. All of my time spent was getting fuel to get more fuel. The creatures are a joke. The weapons and gear are a joke. There's no point to bothering with that. The ships are a joke. You don't really fly it so why bother? If you could really fly through the planet on your own and not have to worry so much about fuel, I could totally see your point. But the game is just so heavy that I can't take time to enjoy anything. They literally put your ship on rails when you get to a planet.

If anyone has skipped this game because of negative reviews, be grateful that you didn't waste your time or money. Its a terrible game after a few hours. The dev team absolutely lied about it.

Oh and as a side note, before the first patch, you could use your "afterburners" to fly quickly over a planet from place to place. But then Hello Games shut that down so you have to either take your time or fly out into space and then fly back down. Its a time sink.