The Technic/Feed The Beast minecraft modpacks were some of the most fun I ever had with that game, but I always had the same problem when using them. Simply put the crafting and building of machines was so intresting I didn't want to spend anytime building. Now playing Starmade I find the opposite is true, the building is so intresting and so much better than minecraft in a lot of ways and the crafting is so boring that I don't want to do any crafting. My suggestion is to add things along the lines of Industrial/Buildcraft, allowing you to make industrial machines and crafting systems and different things like automated harvesting.
EDIT: I also forgot to add that I don't really like the new crafting system, It makes you have to get a ton of materials in order to unlock the recipe and then what you need for crafting is completely random in what you need making it so different resources arn't useful for different reasons.
EDIT: I also forgot to add that I don't really like the new crafting system, It makes you have to get a ton of materials in order to unlock the recipe and then what you need for crafting is completely random in what you need making it so different resources arn't useful for different reasons.