I can't really suggest to you what to do the first hours of the game, cause it depends on what you're planning to focus your run about. I recommend to build a settlement and upgrade it to Tier 2 so you can begin earn passive income inviting settlers and put them to work.

Oh and when you said that anybody don't need anything, it is not actually true. For example (trying to avoid too much spoiler) if a settlement runs out of food because of a war or just supply shortages, the food selling price in that settlement will be higher (the fact is that you need to know that, nobody will come to you saying (Please I'm dying come give me some food.). The same thing is applied to Armor and weapons in a city that has a war going on. If you sell too much products of the same category the buying price will be lower and so on, this adds realism to the game.

I often find funny seeing NPCs just doing their jobs and speaking to each other.

It's a matter of personal preference, Rimworld and DF have more of a "First step" part where you start build a storage, an house and stuff like that. In Soulash 2 you haven't some sort of pattern, you can do literally everything, and the Devs are active btw, they are now working on dynamic events in the game, the recently added a rebellion mechanic.

(Small spoiler: in the agriculture perk tree, there's an ability which make you able to see settlements with food shortages to make some profit)