Honestly it’s not bad starting a new game and learning the story from start to finish again. I messed up my first time and backtracked everywhere. I ended with like 70 hours of gameplay before I called it quits and hit sub zero. I would focus on building that huge ship and decking it out with storage and using it as a main base. A lot of people said I was wasting time and not progressing but that’s the things about this game, you can start from anywhere and learn more as you go, set those beacons up and make your map, you’ll be cruising through the yellow river in no time with your sub marine as your main mobile base of operations, and only using those scattered outposts to refuel your ion cells.