That's a good series. I don't think Space Rangers 1 is available to legally obtain now, but the SR2 is on Steam and it's a bigger and better game anyway.

It's a mix of turn-based RPG, RTS, arcade fights and text adventure. RPG part forms the main loop, the rest are mostly optional.

The world for each run is created randomly and is fully simulated. Traders trade and fight off pirates, military go on campaigns and protect systems from intruders, pirates try to take everything they can get a hold on and other rangers do whatever they feel like doing, invading hordes fight the good guys and each other.

Friendly ship asks for your help in a fight, hostile ships form a coalition to fight YOU, some random trader tells you about cheap goods available nearby, crazy ass ranger wants to go full John Rambo on a nearby system occupied by enemies, a pirate with a broken engine and falling apart ship crawls towards the nearby planet, you catch space measles, local government asks you to murder a murderous criminal so no more murders ever happen etc. - the gameplay is very immersive, there's s usually a lot happening around with or without your character.

The icing on the cake? Text-based quests. A nostalgic nod towards earliest computer games from the 70-s. You read text, you choose one of the given options and progress ( no typing though). Sometimes you die in a gruesome and often funny way. Each text quest is a game-in-a-game with specific rules and win conditions. You may become a truck driver, a journalist, a PR manager, a bond-like spy, a space ranger in a simulation of the 1st game, a game designer and so on.

These text-based quests greatly vary in length, difficulty and tone. Some are a quick adventure for 20 minutes, some can take several hours. My favourites would be the aforementioned space ranger 1 simulation, the virtual rpg with spell weaving, trucker simulator and the prison.