As soon as the game split the main quest into three different quest paths I just went off and did my own thing and I feel as if it's pretty open, I built my own ship, have explored a bunch of systems, it's given me the prompt to make a base.
Whatever you wanna do is cool, that's what makes it a Bethesda game, but definitely don't burn yourself out on narrative heavy quests if you feel like that's coming, if you wanna shoot some stuff totally go for it