Downtime, Narrative, and making it engaging/interesting.
So, a little bit of background before I explain the post title in detail. I've come to Lancer from more simulationist, rules-dense games. Pathfinder, Traveller, etc. Despite their rule density when it comes to the action side of the game, the narrative beats outside of your combats don't tend to have the almost 'prescriptive' nature of the 'rules-light' games out there like PbtA, and Blades in the Dark that Lancer clearly takes inspiration from.
I've seen people talk about Lancer Downtime/Narrative in terms of it being just a brief intermission before you get back to the mech combat, enough time to repair, get a reserve and then you're back in the action. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but that seems to lose a lot of what makes an RPG an RPG and turns it into essentially a miniatures wargame. This is what I want to avoid.
I have players who have been looking through the rules and chafing against the Downtime actions concept in the sense of 'What if what I want to do isn't covered? Are these my only options?' I bounced off PbtA HARD for similar reasons - it felt like it was trying to constrain what you could do narratively in a way that seemed to hamper, rather than encourage roleplaying.
Is there something I'm missing? How do people keep this feeling like an RPG during the narrative beats between combat and not just 'Okay, pick your downtime action, roll your check, cool. Back to fighting!'?