I picked up EGS years ago and I'm just starting to play it. Right now I'm just gathering resources but I don't know what my next steps are supposed to be as far as base or vehicle building goes. NMS looks interesting as well and it's half off on GOG for the next few days.
Does anyone have any experience with these games?
What was the problem with Elite Dangerous?
What wasn't. Outside of the flight model and basic combat, everything is shit and they keep making it worse, not better. And you can't even really enjoy the combat because of the engineering grind. Want competitive weapons? Fly to fifteen different rando goons across the universe and do their fetch quests, so you can spend tens of hours fetching more bullshit materials from unfun gathering spots, or be locked out of PVP relevance.
Don't want to engage in that content? Many pve enemies are tied to your player rank, and once you get high enough THEY get the engineered shit.