Ooh I forgot about this. Elite force is one of the few games that I’ve actually finished. I thought the graphics were gorgeous for the time with lots of believable alien worlds. The characters are engaging and the missions never felt repetitive.
I had a similar thing in Xcom 2 (the only one I’ve played) where I kept getting alerts that I needed more relay stations to contact the resistance, or something like that. Assuming these relays were on the ground, I kept doing missions hoping to find some. Eventually I found out I needed to clear rooms in my spaceship and build them myself. By that time I was seriously behind however.
Ultima Underworld 1 and 2. These are ancient RPG games going right back to the dawn of PC gaming. The first one was the first PC game with a true 3D world where you could look up and down and there were two slopes rather than just steps. The control scheme takes a little getting used to as it was before WSAD+mouse look had become established. Spells are made by combining runes which you find about the place. It also has things like repairable weapons and armour, the need to sleep and eat as well as the normal RPG stats and levels.