Try out Star Conflict https://store.steampowered.com/app/212070/Star_Conflict/
It has the following gameplay types that you can switch to and play as long as you like:
- PvE missions where you and other humans (team or randos) battle AI
- PvP missions where its you and your team up against anther human team
- Free Space missions that you can complete solo or in teams
- Free Space exploring where you can jump system-to-system and explore without any objectives
The game studio, Gaijin, is Russian-based and has a tank game War Thunder (infamous for real-world military leaks) and a vehicular combat game called Crossout, though I've never played them.
Anyway Star Conflict is free-to-play, pay-to-win (PvP), but if you play the PvE and open space parts you don't need to invest any money to have fun. You can stick to the lower ship tiers for casual gaming, and switch between fighting styles and ship roles easily. You can pilot blazing-fast interceptors, balanced mid-size fighters, heavy-hitting frigates, or super-slow but massive destroyers, and customize each one with a huge selection of weapon types, shields, and auxillary syatems. The underlying fighting principle is kinda like rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, so an interceptor can easily solo a destroyer, a destroyer can take out a group of frigates, frigates outpower fighters, fighters hunt interceptors, etc. And the same goes for weapons and shields too, with thermal, EM, and kinetic types and their shield counterparts. If you venture into a space region infested with pirates who use kinetic weapons and thermal shields, then equip your ship with weapons of the opposite type of their shields to maximize damage, and equip shields of the same type as their weapons to minimize damage.
Anyway go try it out and let me know what you think!
