If you’re a fan of the procgen exploration, Avorion, Starbound, or Elite:Dangerous
If you’re a fan of the multiplayer interaction, Eve Online or Star Citizen.
If you’re a fan of the base-building, Space Engineers or X4.
If you’re a fan of the Alien interactions, that’s very tough, but probably X4 or Star Control 2/ The Ur Quan Masters. xD
There aren’t a lot of other single games that have as many systems as NMS does.
I think that I would probably say start to check out X4 if you want 3D, and Starbound if you don’t mind 2D. Be warned, X4 does not fit well with “not much time to play”, though.