I played ages ago and got scared off by the learning curve, but a friend recently got me back in. The problem is that this friend has a "speedrun" mindset and wants me to get end-game ASAP. To illustrate, thus far I have outfitted my starter ship with cargo racks, did some runs, bought a type 6, did a shitload more runs, bought an anaconda, slapped cargo racks on the conda, did more runs, and recently limpet farmed resources. Next on the agenda is unlocking a bunch of engineers to engineer my ship bits (and also farm another 450 mil somewhere in there).
I'm about 50 hours deep and I barely know how to play. I recently learned how to change route settings to avoid stopping at every fuel star along the route. I've done 2 bounties in a fighter I threw together when I was bored of trading. The game is massive and I feel like I've missed out on a ton. I'm big on learning how a game ticks before trying to powergame/minmax/etc.
I guess my question is this: in my rush to the end game, have I missed anything that's important to do or learn?
Honestly, I'm feeling like a rookie, myself, after having spent hundreds of hours trading to get a fleet carrier. I grinded so much and nearly did nothing else, I barely got to see other mechanics. Personally I don't mind, cuz I LOVE the chill atmosphere of delivering cargo in space. BUT it's so awesome that through all the grind I can also do anything I want, cuz I basically have infinite funds to do so.
Buy a couple of ships and try them out? No problem. Land on random planets and collect resources? Cool stuff! Die in a random attempt to do a fight quest and fail miserably? No problem, I'm rich af, I can shrug it off. Discover new planets? Why not? Scan and collect stuff for mechanics and improve my ship? Nice! Buy some cosmetics with the premium currency that I've never touched for years? Why not? Do on-foot FPS fights on a planet or deliver stuff there? Maybe hack into a station? Fun!
It's basically a lot of stuff you can do, even if the most of that stuff ain't as deep as it seems. Just choose something, google stuff you wanna know about it and try it out.
And of course: If it's not fun, try something else or play another game. No need to force yourself to play ED just for the sake of grinding ^^