I found a giant sword that shoots out electric bubbles on my very first planet and ended up using it for a good 10 hours. Some of Starbound's content gating doesn't make a lot of sense - for example, why can't I get pets until Delta Sector? But no matter what tier I was in, I was constantly discovering or crafting exciting weapons and armor. Defeat this boss, and you unlock a whole new list of crafting items, including one that allows you to jump to Beta Sector, where you can begin the process all over again. In the case of Alpha Sector, you need to build a beacon that will then summon a UFO that spits out penguins. The game is split into tiers of difficulty based on what sector of space you're in, and each sector comes with a crafting goal to work toward.
If you ever stop exploring, Starbound also eventually builds on the initially generic progression structure in more interesting ways.
And they really make adventuring rewarding and surprising all on its own. These pre-designed setpieces repeated in appearance from time to time, but they always had some new wrinkle - a different piece of treasure as a reward or a new hidden passageway or some alien creature I'd never encountered.
