not the person you asked but ive played a lot of nms so i figured id chime in.
it’s not combat heavy unless you want it to be. Just dont mine resources in front of or shoot at the space cops and theyll leave you alone (and avoid planets that are labeled “aggressive sentinels”, theyll shoot you on sight on those planets. Also dont pick up gravitino balls.)
The only time combat is required on foot is if you follow the main storyline (and tbh its mostly just to get you used to how combat works) or if you do an expedition that requires combat. And even for those scenarios, you can usually get around it by just getting the required materials elsewhere.
as far as space combat goes, you have to do a little bit of combat to get a free freighter, but space combat is way easier than on foot imo, since you can use an auto aim feature. Pirates will occasionally chase you, but you can literally just run away from them and warp to another system, or land in a space station to get them to back off.
I dislike combat in nms, not because its bad or anything (it’s actually really fun once you get a decently upgraded multitool/ship) i just prefer to be sneaky rather than go in guns blazing for roleplay reasons, so i try to avoid it as much as possible.
generally by the sorts of people who think their magic dicks can fix me
or by the people who, via some mental gymnastics, think that since im not into sex the way they are, i must actually be a p*do
or by people who try to say that being ace doesnt make me queer its just a phase i just want oppression points its not that bad its not like you face real consequences for your made up sexuality
or by people who say “yeah its fine that youre ace, i dont mind” and then it turns out that they do, in fact, mind; sometimes to the point of violence, because they didnt really believe me when i said “im not and will never be sexually attracted to you”
idk fam. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ you tell me.