Enjoying the endgame, checklist of things to do after main quest, faction quests

A list of the many things to do after finishing the main quest and faction quests.

Endgame Checklist, Your Starfield Completionist Things To Do

After finishing the main quest, faction quests, companion quests, major side quests, building ships and outposts, upgrading gear, new game plus, etc. I still found more things to do.
Here's my incomplete list of Starfield endgame stuff. I've excluded the mainline things and most of the small fedex side quests. Hope this checklist helps someone enjoy the endgame. I sure did. It would be great to hear what others have found.

** spoilers follow **

Ship, station and staryard encounters
Repeatedly fly to different planets and systems, head to any "ship" icons and you'll eventually encounter everything.
- Juno's Gambit
- Narcissus ship race
- Ghost ship / pale lady (multiple different ships, slate clues)
- Robot survey ship
- Friendly Captain (lemonade)
- Almagest space station
- UC / Freestar patrol ships, ask "have you heard anything interesting?" for clues about where to go

Planet encounters and locations
- Sonny Di Falco's island (Maheo I)
- Vulture's Roost (Jaffa IV)
- The Eleos Retreat (Ixyll II)
- Vlad's Villa (Syrma VII-a)

NPCs
Talk to them, smile, maybe do a quest.
- Muria at or near GalBank (New Atlantis)
- Unnamed Trackers Alliance woman (Cydonia) (sadly only a single quest)
- Mining League shop owner Saburo (Neon)
- Manaaki Almonte, Trade Authority (Cydonia)

RP / Messing Around
- Take spouse to the beach at Paradiso, pout in a chair with your clothes on while they run around in their swimsuit
- Pile up alien corpses in pit surrounded by storage containers, then dive in
- Reject the Unity NG+10 trap, become the Pilgrim, build a life with companions on an outpost
- Use manipulation on guards when caught stealing
- Become an interstellar shipping magnate

Exploration
Upgrading the hand scanner (surveying), scanner and astrophysics help a lot with exploration.
- Visit all the settlements with people including less frequented ones: Gagarin, Eleos Retreat, New Homestead
- Become a photographer, RP a NatGeo nature documentary
- Climb mountains, watch sunsets
- Discover new aliens (temperate planets), challenge yourself to find aliens that do not look like insects or dinosaurs
- Find new companions, talk to them (named recruits have backstory and contextual quips)
- Scan planet features
- On a planet, visit the 10 - 12 random points of interest and ship landing sites (then wish there was more variety)
- Old Earth landmarks and mementos,snow globes

Ship combat
Turn the difficulty up to Very Hard and get your best ship ready.
- Va'ruun spawn on nearly every travel stop in Serpentis
- Capture a Va'ruun Eulogy III (C class, usually level 50 - 70)
- 3 level 72 Starborn ships will sometimes spawn in level 75 systems
- Legendary ships (M class, 3 separate ecounters, no respawn)
- Attack UC or Freestar at home planets

Ship building
- Build a C class god ship with max mobility (100), max dps, max jump range, 800+ fuel and 7k+ cargo
- Build a ship with max speed (180 base)
- Build beautiful ships?

Outpost building
The main output of outposts is credits (slower than selling weapons), xp or just for fun.
- An outpost on a planet where a few hours nap is 48+ hours UT
- A chain of outposts, ship all the good resources to your main outpost
- Build a hab with laser turrets on top of a flocking / herding level 75 alien spawn point, happy hunting
- Make an entire city

Quests
- Crucible / Operation Starseed (Charybdis)
- Groundpounder (Altair)
- Sure Bet (starts with Lizzy in Gagarin, then derelict Deimos ship in Grissom)
- First Contact / ECS Constant (Porrima)
- Tourists Go Home (New Homestead)
- Mantis (Denebola)
- The Audition (Neon gang war)

Missions
Most of these repeat after awhile. Many do not scale to your level and will be trivial at level 60+ though at player level 80 - 100 you can find level 98 "boss" elite enemies from Ecliptic Spacer and Crimson Fleet, legendary pirate, titan, commandant etc.
- Constellation mission board (only a handful available?)
- After completing faction quests: UC Vanguard, SysDef, Sergeant Yumi, Freestar, Ryujin, Crimson Fleet
- Other mission boards: Trackers Alliance, Trade Authority
- GalBank (starts in New Atlantis with Due in Full, sadly only a handful of missions)
- Random / procgen / radiant missions from points of interest: transport homesteaders offworld, eliminate spacer threat, provide minerals / supplies

XP Farming
- Fight Va'ruun ships in Serpentis (this is my favorite way to level up late game)
- Hunt aliens in level 75 systems (hunting trips are fun)
- Build an alien xp farm with animal husbandry (very convoluted, high skill requirements)
- Make 99 adaptive frames again and again? ugh

[Anubis 1101]

just wrapping up my post-dlc playthrough. looks like i did almost everything, but im glad there are still a few things i missed.

im more than ready to write this middling game off for good, just a bit more.

[Fluffy]

Outstanding post OP. Just what I was looking for.

[Sidetie]

here i thought the endgame was jumping through 10 + universes to get max powers BEFORE endgaming it lol.

[Symfreddy]

Thanks, a good reminder, as I'am already doing these activites as I'am approching the end (180h, lvl 75, 14 outposts).
The game is good but seems unpolished and not allow to do long terme puposes.
Ship builder worth it a lot, but outpost is not enough polish and finished to be fully usable (no real housing, not be able to concentrage all ressrouces to one main base, no interrest except to xp to craft big volumes, we should be able to craft long terme object as ship parts or starbase pieces to have a long term goal)
And I guess console compatibility bridle a lot the game. It's for me the main problem of stafield haters/lovers.
High level activities is farming on same ennemy bases or explore most of the time empty planets, it lacks a lot of content and new game+ is the only response to continue but it's not enough for me to replay a full game.

[Trentscousin]

Thank you for this very nicely written and also helpful guide friend!