Both of those things are stupid.
What you can do however is pick a high-end manufactured component and make a nice chart for it, like so:
Find orbital bodies with the low-level components and set up extractors with a manufacturing chain so you can craft the final product a few thousand at a time. This nets you 800 xp per batch (as opposed to the idiots following shit-tier youtube tutorials getting 100 xp on Andraphon making tier 1 garbage) as well as stuff you can vendor for insane amounts of money.
I'm not saying this makes Starfield great, but it certainly lets you avoid your spacekaren companions, the spacenigger NPCs, the dumbass writing, the contrived quests; pretty much everything that makes the game so unappealing.
You do all this not to gain levels to play the other parts of the game, but as an end in itself. A shittier version of Factorio, but with exploration and combat.
Depending on your level of autism, you can take this pretty far:
While making your outposts you'll have to get into shipbuilding, which is another aspect of the game that's its own "fun bubble" - and exceptionally well done - but unnecessary for questing/story.
I realize there are games that do this space factory stuff much better, and they haven't cost $400m to make, nor did they take 7 years for a major gaming studio, nor do they retail for $70, nor will your steam friends think you're retarded for playing them. All I'm saying is: if you want to have some fun in Starfield, this is the only way.
