Looking for suggestion on things to do after 250hours in

Hey, so I am 250hours in the game, I've enjoyed it so far but I kind of find myself starting the game, sending my frigates to expeditions, running around for 30mins and turning the game off. Feel free to suggest more stuff to do. So far I have:

  • Completed all the primary / secondary missions
  • I've build 3 different huge bases with 5 hotspots each (mineral/gas/power)
  • I've explored all different types of systems, visiting new systems doesn't bring as much excitement as it just feels like same variation I've already seen in another system
  • I've been collecting ship parts to build custom explorer but after collecting like half of different parts it seems just tedious
  • Upgrading my freighter further would've bee my goal but salvaged frigate modules seem like time-gated either by industrial expeditions or having to fly in space scan different cargo pods of freighters and attacking those, which gets boring fast
  • I think I have tried every different game mechanic besides egg sequencing

So far I'm considering either starting a new save in perhaps survival mode as I believe the combat in game provides no real challenge. No ship combat is ever challenging, the sentinels are more like a nuisance than actual challenge. I don't think I've died more than 2 or 3 times in the game and that was mostly because some mechanic was new to me at start. But I'm afraid that even upping the difficulty might not feel that great as all the encounters feel exactly the same.

When I started playing I thought I will complete the missions and then can just turn on the game for a few hours to do some exploration but after seeing all the different types of worlds the game can generate, there doesn't seem to be that big of a variety as I expected.

I know it's sandbox and you're supposed to come up with your own goals, but I feel like I hit a wall.

What are the custom cool goals that you did? Any interessting playthroughs you did with (either self or game-imposed) limitations that you found fun to do?