I assume the root problem is a near complete lack of money to make Friendica polished, or user friendly, or full of great features, or well-known. If it’s a tiny team who may have other jobs, then it’s hard to imagine it getting better.
Almost all of the activities in game apart from gradually upgrading your ship and multi-tool are optional, and mainly ‘for fun’. So, focus on learning more about what upgrading your ship would actually entail, and the same for the multi-tool. Overall the game is fairly easy, so enjoy the ride rather than seeking out ‘end game’ or serious challenge. I think of it kind of like a fantasy of american Car Culture combined with a focus on exploring a bit of many cool looking worlds. You find a really badass car/ship you love, and tweak it out until it’s amazing. You also do other stuff if you want to, maybe coming up with your own RPG style story that you invent just to give yourself other goals. You will probably get rich before long, so then you maybe collect more ships and pimp them out and build a cool base (or 5), or get into the Mayor thing, or some of the other game activities. Or just wander until you have had enough of checking out cool planets around the galaxy.
This was my career. Seeing popular sci-fi/fantasy movies maybe 1-2 times a year (especially on opening day…woot!) seemed fun and to boost morale a bunch. The studio was large enough so that several times we could rent out the theater to ourselves and be extra raucous, which was also fun. I don’t think people complained, since this was during office hours and not after hours or on a weekend. Otherwise, I think ‘if your going to give me free time then let me go home’.
I think longer ‘field trips’ might have sucked, even if they related to a game we were making. Sticking to sci-fi and fantasy films with cool fx was close enough.
Also eco village and co-housing. There are plenty of videos showcasing eco villages on youTube.