To a point this is true, however, in my time playing the game (since it was in beta), I've seen FD try very hard to get players to engage in all sorts of different activities, but rather than make those activities compelling in their own right (I'm sure they try to, but they don't necessarily have the courage of their convictions) they sometimes seem to try to 'bribe' players to do things. Sometimes that's by offering things you cannot get elsewhere, and often it's by throwing credits at players if they undertake certain activities that they want very much to be seen as successful from a development perspective - mining and exploration come to mind as recent examples.
Nothing really wrong with this, but it might have been better if they had tried to actually make activities truly compelling and fun, not to be fair an easy task in such a huge game where players can be doing essentially the same gameplay loops many, many times.
To echo Jmanis above, I've done the biological sites to fill up my high grade mats, and it really was like stepping out of the game. Felt like work, rather than play. I have no problem using the SRV, it wasn't difficult or challenging, just very repetitive gameplay. One could say I didn't need to do it, but again, with manufactured and data mats, I also pick them up by playing the game, by taking delivery missions and getting four Anacondas worth of materials, or from mission rewards where I can pick up 20 or more modified embedded firmware in a very short time.
There's no way to do that with raw mats, and there really should be. Mission rewards, perhaps having some bits lying around planetary scan locations or settlements, there are plenty of planetary salvage missions, and if they had a few high grade raws always lying around, then that's a secondary reason for doing them. And after a while, most mission types could do with additional motivations for taking them.
o7
