Scuttled

They sank her for a reason.

Your ship is gone. Your escape pod drifted the belt for days - until the scanner caught a faint reactor signature: the MSV Lodestar, a freighter scuttled by her own crew and left dark in the rocks.
You board her. Then you get to work.
Defend. Aim the main cannon yourself. Asteroids bounce off your shield — but every deflected rock is ore you'll never smelt.

Salvage. Tractor in the shards, refine ore to ingots, and spend them on the machine keeping you alive.

Rebuild. Every repair and upgrade appears on your ship: turret barrels sweep from under the hull, drones sortie from real cargo doors, the warp core assembles piece by piece.

Descend. Five Power Core tiers push you deeper — through magnetic storms, comet windfalls, swarm surges, pirates that rob your salvage, and the guardian that rules each sector.

Uncover. The Lodestar's crew left their logs behind. Each guardian you kill recovers one — and the deeper you go, the clearer the reason they sank her becomes.

Escape. Charge the warp drive while everything in the belt comes for you. Then go home.

One ship. Six sectors. One way out. No offline progress, no prestige treadmill - a complete 5-6 hour arc with an actual ending.