Granted it's in early access and there's not a lot of substance it plays really well making your own fancy space ship. You have to always be managing life-saving resources while mining and refining materials. Board other vessels and kidnap prisoners only to either kill, ransom or convert. My only gripe about the game is that you don't have the same level of control as Rim World where you can force crew to do something, you can individually assign someone when they're idol yeah but when you run out of water to convert to oxygen or need fuel rods I think that takes a higher importance than going to the bathroom or eating.
Also, it's really not worth keeping prisoners in the long run. You'll have to jump to another sector to re-encounter the same faction you pissed off. Also, by the time you're in your third or fourth sector which is pretty much mid/late early game your first ship is basically end game ready. Yeah you can make a second ship but mo ships = mo problems and you can't research anything or buy upgrades to deal with logistical issues.
To be robust is not about combat prowess, it is the state of readiness for the situation at hand.