u/OkDifficulty1443

New player here. I've run through all 4 of the base factions and am looking to make my first expansion purchase. My top criteria is to have the best solo-player experience. What factions, when played by or against the AI, provide the best solo-experience? I was thinking about the Otters, for example. I was wondering if the AI was capable of making intelligent decisions for setting prices or buying things if I were playing the Otters. And so on for the other factions.

There's also Clockwork enemies and hirelings. Are any of those improvements over just playing a regular game against the AI?

I'm playing on a PS5. Let's say I want to craft a lot of something. Let's say I want to craft 99 things. I have to individually press R1 99 times, which is awful and will probably cause me to quit the game before long. I cannot just HOLD R1 to have it rapidly increment the desired number of items to craft to 99.

I've seen several "No Man's Sky Tips for Beginners" type videos where they showcase this R1 feature and though I can't see what their hands or controllers are doing, it is very apparent that their counter is incrementing rapidly, as though they are just HOLDING R1 and having the counter tick up at great speed.

Am I missing something?

I played this game a few years ago so I remember how a lot of things go. Especially getting a freighter battle after a small number of warp jumps and/or X hours of playing.

Anyways, I started a new playthrough a few days ago with the sole intent of getting a Corvette, which I did. I have now gone through 3 freighter battles now and not once has the captain invited me on board to offer me the ship. One time I teleported onto a ship, but the captain didn't have anything to really say to me.