Vanilla SP content for a long time returning player

[Ambient]

I haven't touched space engineers for years, pretty much stopped way before planets. What type of encounters and SP content can I expect out of a non scenario sandbox game? I'm asking this before I invest too much time without using mods that might make it a superior experience.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Nothing on planets unless you do one of the easy start games with already embedded pirate bases. However, in space pirate ships/stations, abandoned ships/stations, and various pirate cargo ships will periodically spawn, and if you approach too closely drones will spawn and attack if you have drones and ingame scripts enabled in the advanced settings. In that sense, it's not a static game.

I play single-player 99.99% of the time and often spice up my game by adding hostile NPC mods for both planets and space. Nerf your jetpack on planets and you're in for an even more interesting experience. With weather, you have visibility challenges as well as player and grid damage occurring due to lightning strikes, and it's especially dangerous on the new planet Pertam. Unfortunately, the only vanilla NPCs besides pirates are wolves on the Earthlike planet and sabiroids on the Alien planet, the Alien planet's moon, Titan, and very occasionally on the new planet, Pertam (again, if they're enabled in the advanced settings).

The new Star System start in survival is more challenging; your starting pod on most planets and moons is very basic. It has a "survival kit" that will process stone into small quantities of iron, nickel, and silicon (with lots of gravel), and a rudimentary assembler that will build enough survival components to keep you alive. A lot of people hate the initial grind, but toss in some hostile NPCs and you'll get parts more quickly (if you survive) and have less stone to grind to get going.

All-in-all, you have a lot of choices.

[Ambient]

Sounds like mods from the start are the way to go

[Spaceman Spiff]

It all depends. For a re-starting player who hasn't played the newer configuration, I recommend a less challenging start for your first time through. Ore is easiest to see on Mars and Titan, relatively easy to see on Pertam (although ice, magnesium, silver, and gold are much more challenging), somewhat difficult to see on the Earthlike planet and Moon, and just about impossible to see on the Alien planet, Europa, and Triton.

[Ambient]

What mods do you use to spice up your SP games?

[Spaceman Spiff]

The list is fairly lengthy, so bear with me. Start with this...you'll need it for everything else.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1521905890
The best recent addition to the hostile NPC mod world is RivalAI (you can find links to some other, but not all, RivalAI-enabled mods here):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2043543925
Now, generally going from easier to more difficult (in my opinion):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1172408535
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2095992123
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2146772509
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2315059547
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=525460808 (space-only)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1934823285
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2268444353
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2123673649

[Spaceman Spiff]

Most operate by increasing the difficulty as your PCU increases (i.e., the larger and more complicated your grids get). And some will utilize other mods to increase their defenses if you've enabled them. Here are a couple examples:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857053359
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365616918

[Ambient]

oh lawd. Thanks for the spoonfeed, this will cut down the time of browsing trough tons of content.

[Tregrenos]

Never been a fan of single player because it seems like you're building a wall in front of yourself rather than trying to overcome one. I play on a server that uses only a few QoL mods and recently added some pretty aggressive NPCs. I like the multiplayer aspect of it and despite everything beyond Earth being PvP everyone's pretty chill.

The server allows scripts, but "breaks" program blocks that are "too active" and there are only a handful of mods. It's pretty close to Vanilla while also feeling like "more" that doesn't borderline change the game. If that's something of interest to you here's the discord for more information.

https://discord.gg/qZgewuFd

If starting on earth isn't something you want to do, but also don't want to just focus on solo-only, I have 2 public stations on the server. One set in space with facilities to get you started as well as being within close proximity of an NPC station that sells ships. The other is located on Pertam and is designed to aid in building rovers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naNTuVl6vzc

(Note that the above station doesn't use scripts or mods. It's designed to work totally in vanilla.)