I love Rust, probably one of my favorite games ever. However, playing on a normal server is pretty much a full time job. It seems that people either move onto something else or become entirely consumed by the game. Any games that are like Rust but aren't like that?
Satisfactory has exploration and base-building elements, but the exploration and combat are pretty bare-bones. The focus is on setting up complicated harvest/production lines in order to progress.
factorio should also be mentioned here, as it is the game that got the factory genre running, and is just extremley polished.