One of my favorite aspects of this game is how the mechanics allow a framework with a lot of freedom to be the sort of spacefarer you want to be. Like brawling in huge battles? You can salvage several battleships drifting in space and fight to build your fleet up into a giant wrecking ball of mercenaries.
Want to smuggle? You have the option of going dark, hiding in asteroids, modding your ships to both be harder to detect as well as better hide your contraband to lower the chance of security forces finding your drugs when you are searched.
An explorer? You got hulking cargo ships and fuel freighters to bring along and dozens of uncharted star systems to explore, derelicts and abandoned stations to explore, fleets of rouge AI to both avoid, escape from and fight.
And you can freely bounce around between these options, given you make the nessesary preparations.
But for all these options, you're all funneled into the same over-arching goal. Build a colony.
Built a mercenary fleet that's the envy of most empires? Build a colony.
Built a vast fortune trading and smuggling? Build a colony.
Explored a vast swath of unexplored space, uncovering countless mysteries of the local star group? Build a colony.
I wish there were other options available, the freedom to choose what you end up sinking millions of credits in. What those might be, I'm not sure. Maybe become a titan of industry in the core worlds? Unite the core worlds under one leader? Build a working ring gate? Discover what happened to cause the collapse? Send a fleet of ships back to earth to find out what happened? I'm not sure what options would work that would be the equal of building a colony, but it's just my suggestion that there be other options for players to spend their credits.
Though it makes me wonder if all the other options need to also produce credits to make them viable, as you do end up getting a lot of credits in the long run as colonies develop.