Until there's combat, I don't think there's going to be any significant risk/reward choices. Basically you choose the right gear loadout and head to an activity; you can try to optimize by planning a route, trying to keep your inventory from getting full, etc. There's also low drop rate collectables, so it's a risk to try to find it vs. spending your time on some guaranteed progression.
But at the end of the day, it's a super lightweight step tracking game that gives me some cute in-game progress for when I have to run to the grocery store, or I can make sure I queue up something good before I run a 10k.
It's still fairly rough around the edges, but at this point I prefer Predecessor. Mostly because even at lowest settings, Deadlock feels unresponsive. But some heroes just have very unfun mechanics, like the lightning storm that covers a quarter of the map and lasts 20 seconds, or the ultimate that swaps your HP.
So if the theory is that spears were planted in the ground rather than thrown, that means there was probably a ton of them in the ground and mammoths were chased into the trap.
Your ship computer shows hints and places you haven't fully explored. Alternatively you could say where you are and helpful internet people can give you a nudge.
20,000 years of this, 7 more to go!