No Mans Sky, Main Missions. The game is very open allowing you to do whatever, thing is you will get to a point where you are lacking advanced items and system access. I found that skipping the main missions was my issue, had many of them started but did not go down the very long mission tree many have. So started doing them and almost immediately going farther into space, interesting I am still in Euclid galaxy which is the starting area. It is beyond massive and you could just stay there if you wanted to. So do those main missions it will help your progress more, the corvette really sidelined me and then traveling to many space stations to upgrade my exosuit.
Then now my first base on OZMatrix was barely started, have hired people to help expand base. Had no idea this was the way it worked, the two there now have been unlocking new tech for the base. Been wondering how to get all the nice stuff and looks like this is the start of it. One huge advantage of my early play exploration and suit upgrades was a massive inventory that has allowed me to fly through side missions because I have many of the resources already. My Xbox says I have around 50 hours played, but game save shows around 40 ish.