I have played Astroneer quite a bit for now and while it is great fun to play i noticed that there are several factors that make long term playing feel rather grindy and repetative. I could go the easy way and say it's just the lack of content to spend that much time on the game but i realized that there is actually enough stuff in the game already but it simply is balaced badly - as a consequence a lot of items become obsolete.
Mining:
The crane: a great feature but ultimately makes no sense to ever build. it gives no advantage to drilling speed of hard rocks over the terrain tool -