It is a number go up, sandbox of a game. Bunch of stuff to do but very little reason to do it. It’s a fun game, but takes a special kind of person who knows how to make their own fun to enjoy it and doesn’t mind the grind.

There are quests and a story but they serve more as tutorialization rather than an actual “main quest line” (there is a story and lore but it’s all very background stuff that is completely irrelevant to the actual gameplay). Lot of down time and just exploration between objectives once you reach the middle, and the ending is pretty much “now you know the ‘Big Secret’, what do you do now?”

From what you described, it’s probably not your bag. It doesn’t really reward in depth exploration as planets are all randomly generated. You go, explore around a bit, then bounce on to the next planet unless you like the aesthetic enough to make a base in. Combat is the worst aspect of the game even the dogfighting, which is better than the gunplay but still meh.

It will, as you put, “crush [you] with never ending space, billions quests, and tedious base building”