What are some good medium/long term goals to work towards!

• Visit the guardian sites
• Unlock all engineers
• Go on a long exploration into deep space
• Find a teammate to play with

Hey, after a pause of some years my goal ATM is to earn enough credits for a carrier + 2years of upkeep. But since mining got boring for me I'm on a detour to level up my federation rank for this sweet corvette.

I myself is in a similar situation. Here is a few medium/long/very long terms goals that is on my bucket list.

• Visit historical sites like the voyager probes in Sol or Jameson crash site on HIP 12099 1 B
• Go to hard to reach places just for the bragging right of it. Like Rackham's Peak in HIP 58832 or Hutton Orbital in Alpha Centauri (warning, Hutton Orbital is even farther than Lunan Holdings).
• While you are at Hutton Orbital, grab a few mugs and gins and participate in the 2 Hot 2 Messy event and get a chance to win a real Hutton mug.
• Participate in an Expedition.
• Learn how the Background simulation work and participate in it to help your favourite faction.
• Help repeal the Thargoids by combating them, help evacuate stations in system at risk of been invaded, help rebuild stations after a system repealed the Thargoids. For the Last one, check Operation Ida.
• Enter a buckyball race and win it.
• Train to become a member of the Fuel rats or Hull Seals and help fellow Commanders.
• Go exploring and try to find everything from the codex.

Buy every ship in the game, outfit them all for a specific task/mechanic/game play loop.

Working towards a carrier plus 5 years of upkeep is a good long-term goal, but you shouldn't be laser-focused only on that. I think focusing on small short-to-medium term goals is best—progress toward the long term goal will happen along the way and you'll have less chance of burning out.

Goals like "think I'll go and romp around the Guardian ruins this week and unlock some modules" or "let's see how the thargs are doing in Pleiades and collect some meta-alloys from their surface sites" or "let's test thermal conduit PA-s in a haz res this weekend!". Fun little snippets that don't get grindy but will teach you game mechanics, bring you to interesting places and make you a better pilot in long term.

Key is to mix activites up and not do anything longer than you have the mood for. For example, in this thargoid war, I might drop into an AXCZ, blow up one or two cyclops, decide I've had enough for the day, bug out and reequip for evacs or CSAR in a different system.

I'm personally making my way through ranks so I can buy a federal corvette. Occasionally switching up how I do it, currently hauling passengers in a beluga.