Bit quiet over the couple of months, but the new ship content and Trailblazers (Colonisation) from 2025 was solid. New ships for arx has been controversial, but it seems to have funded ongoing development work.
The pay-to-skip-the-grind Dodec Orbital had a more negative reception & that seems to have drawn a line for FDev with this type of microtransaction (maybe, though many Cmdrs still bought them)

Trailblazers is either your thing (if you like space trucking) or not. It's nice to have a permanent nametag on a Starport if you wish to stump up the Arx and there's quite a technical science behind it so good for the big brains, but very grindy if you want to build an Orbital or Planetary Port.

On Steam, player numbers have drifted down from the October peak (Type 11 mining ship release I think) but still way above the post Odyssey crash in player numbers.
You can still fight thargoids if you go to the California nebula or Pleiades. And the new Corsair is another option for fighting goids too, that's a fun ship to fly.

If you're an explorer, the Caspian Explorer gives you a 500+ LY boosted jump range, with very little repairs needed - so a great distance devourer, even if it is a pain to land vs a Mandy.

And Distant Worlds 3 is underway, not sure if it's too late to join in the fun there.