Been playing the game again and while I spent too much time enjoying the colony building and farming(as in setting up a farm), the rest of the game is still a disappointment and will be put aside as soon as I reach the end. The story isn't anything enticing and some important stuff just isn't explained/expanded on as far as I can tell and hear from others. Not having a story would have probably been a better call. While we have some shiny new special weapons/abilities, it doesn't mean much with the game being as unchallenging as it is.
The progression for each tier just went like this:
1. go to planet with new ore tier
2. mine a bunch in one mining trip
3. craft ALL the new items
4. repeat
There is nothing stopping you or even remotely slowing down your progression and it feels completely unrewarding. Some of the boss designs were neat, but unfortunately unchallenging and since they're not tied to gear tier, chances are it'll be made even easier by you most likely being overgeared by the time you get to them since progressing is so easy and the story is made painful and slow by the whole scanning shenanigans. There are still some really questionable design decisions in places that you'd think the devs would have had enough time to clear up too. Overall the game still really feels half-done to me, hopefully they'll keep working on it and make it into something enjoyable/rewarding to play.