The daily research missions are a nice excuse to poke around. My most recent one was to scan and destroy carnivorous plants, which was pretty straightforward aside from these nasty little dudes who kept interrupting me. I scanned and named them as a warning to any future visitors.
I also managed to finish the main storyline in my Survival difficulty savegame, which I haven't documented at all here but went relatively smoothly after the initial harrowing hour or so of getting off the starting planet. At the final decision point I rewarded my character with reincarnation(?) in Eissentam, a galaxy with an unusual density of lush planets.