Space Rangers HD

I can't believe how great this game is. I think I picked it up for $5 during a steam sale. It has everything you could want in a spaceship game. Invading cyborgs, pirates taking systems. Thousands of different upgrades to your ship. Many different kinds of ships & missions. And the text games, I thought would be annoying turned out to be very memorable and well done. I can't say enough good things about this game.

One of the best games created on planet Earth with the best soundtrack that was ever created for the game.

This is the best space sim ever created. I clocked more than 1500 hours in, with this expansion considered, perhaps more than 2000 already.
Unique mishmash of genres, convincing space economy in never ending flux and inflation, challenging story line, lots of loot to be collected and graphics does not look dated even 10 years after the release.

Artificial intelligence was sent to study distant galaxies. After becoming the knowledge, that a live form living in our galaxy is not able to perceive, it returned with war against all live. 3 AI have 3 different motivations, which the player have to unravel and resist.
What is this but an actual story with the launch of the probe carrying the culture and habit of mankind to the far edges of the galaxy?
The game is the Legend and was checked up by time.
Such a clever AI that spends its life on its own without the participation of the player which is a huge rarity for any RPG.
An excellent combination of genres: turn-based battles in space, real-time planetary battles, a large number of various text quests which were stylised like it was in 80-90 years. Surviving in prison, detective stories and becoming the intergalactic head cook of the higher class will be personalised stories of your character.
All of that are inside cosmo-role-play adventure and are hard to achieve with only 1 walkthrough.

Wild to think this is $2 right now, the first game makes up a good chunk of my childhood and this second entry expands upon many concepts of the original, ignore my Steam playtime I have a physical copy of the game
It's a space sim spanning a multitude of genres and offering almost sandbox-like freedom in a galaxy with two major threats, one universal no matter how you play and one you have the choice to join the ranks of.
Before starting your first game, you'll be offered customization of your starting loadout. The overall themes like trader or pirate should give you an inspiration as to how you could shape your journey - although remember you start out average at best, so maybe heading to battle straight away isn't the best idea, but then again you get the option to start with a scanner and extra weapon to seek out vulnerable valuable targets...
Immediately you're thrown into the world with full freedom to do pretty much anything, though picking up the items you chose from the storage, checking out the local equipment store and taking the pilot training mission is a good starting point. Then, maybe you could explore the known star sectors and check out the services provided by the various stations throughout the galaxy, as well as inhabited and uninhabitable planets.
More importantly, you can get started with interplanetary missions, seek trade opportunities to take, shoot some asteroids for minerals, peek into the nearest wormhole or maybe take on a vulnerable civilian ship or smuggle illicit goods from pirate space into allied space, while slowly building up your ranger to be up to battling the galactic menace whether alone or with a wing - even if you live the pirate life, the inclusion of those as well as a more universal foe means you don't miss out on the epic galaxy-spanning war. You do miss out on the storyline regarding dealing with the pirates, well, not necessarily, but I'm not spoiling anything here.
Each activity has different demands on the different axes of progression: Interplanetary missions benefit the most from a speedy ship, trade benefits from large storage space and putting XP in trade (at cost of combat skills), while exploring wormholes reward good jump range and fuel tank in case it spits you in hostile territory. Equipment, its variants with upsides and downsides, modules and artifact equipment all give you tools to customize your ship for the journey you took, as well as giving you options on what kind of combat build you'd like to make (although the balance there is heavily skewed towards the tactical advantage of speed keeping you at a desired range, you might just find a way to become nigh invulnerable instead?)
This much depth right now for the price of skipping a bottle of soda while eating out.

Old but Gold

This is a one of a kind game. I remember getting it on DVD in 2000s and playing the s*** out of it. Then the second game came and basically recycled the first, but it was still very good. This one is kinda final edition of that second game, with stuff added in and optimalized.. (un)fortunately, these hours aren't being counter here, or this would be my most played game probably.
Weird mix of RPG, RTS, and perhaps even 4x, with top-down look and functional economy and war. You can change your ships, some of them have more slots for weapons and equipments, some less. Multiple factions, two enemy factions and tons of activity and quests, that can be text heavy.
You can be merchant, pirate, scavenger, anything. You don't even have to fight. On harder difficulties, Dominators can steamroll the galaxy and you need to fight though. Or sometimes pirates end on the top, you never know how will your game progress.
RTS element on planets with those customizable robots is imo useless and would be better opt-out in options.
There are pretty good mods on Discord, majority translated to English, I recommend everyone to find them and try new game with them.