THIS GAME ISN'T FOR EVERYONE. If you do a bit of roleplay it's pretty entertaining. This is the first true open ended game I've played. First off this game has no definitive end. Since the game game out, 0.0003% of the milkyway galaxy has been explored by players. And even if everyone on earth was playing this game it would still take a horrendous amount of time 2 explore the Galaxy completely. You can start off Trading workaway doing exploring. And then once you've made a large amount of in game credits,(if you get shot down in any other ship after the starting ship, you'll have to pay a deductible, commonly called 'a rebuy')you can work on your combat skills. There's much to do in the game, though let's not kid ourselves, space is vast, and even though you can travel up to 2000x the speed of light from planet to planet. Space can be really boring. Also in many other games you and you alone are like a God and a hero of the story. In Elite Dangerous you are a nobody. And the most you can hope for is to find something no one has found yet. I play the game with a throttle and stick. I find that the game is really immersive then. If you want total emerson, get a VR headset. From what I have heard, VR makes it even better.
Check out videos on YouTube from:
ObsidianAnt
CMDR Exigus
Ghost giraffe
Vindicator Jones
They have excellent videos and tutorials and other content for Elite Dangerous.