>>719801883
Yes. You mine rocks that allow you to build upgrades that allow you to go to new systems where you mine different-coloured rocks. If you're really invested you can set up a base where you place an extractor that mines the rocks for you, but you will need a lot of rocks, for everything, as all of your gear is charged by rocks, and all of your crafting is done with rocks. Aside from that you unlock inventory slots by visiting new systems or finding drop pods and using the same three basic materials to repair them every time, and you get new blueprints by spending currency that you find buried underground or from opening containers, so the game actively incentivises just following markers you spot with your scope.
It would probably be a better experience if you just used the difficulty modifiers to turn crafting costs off entirely and just explore on your own terms since at least the planets are much more varied than they used to be, although they still suffer from the same idiotic decision of reusing the same four angry plants on every single planet in the universe.
