Astro Knights hits a lot of what you want, and is a very solid game. It's not grand sci-fi, but it is sci-fi. It's a cooperative deckbuilding game about working together to defeat some giant enemy.
I think that both Astro Knights and Astro Knights: Eternity are good, but since you say you're just getting into board games, go for the original, it's definitely more accessible.
I also suggest Spirit Island, but it can definitely be hard to pick up. Quite complex, but definitely worth playing. If you want to, shoot me a DM and I can try and teach you it sometime?
To me, the correct way to play Minecraft is with a friend and pursuing silly, enjoyable goals.
Something I had a lot of fun doing is playing as "The Heart Tree" while my partner tried to support me. Essentially, I chose a tree I really liked, cut it down except for its lowest block (now designated "The Heart Block"), and I always would have to be touching or very close to logs which descend from the original tree.
I also had fun playing Modded Skyblock with my friend from high school, focusing on guiding progression and decorating (since I knew how to progress a lot better than he did), but not making too much progress personally.
To me, I intrinsically feel a drive to constantly chase progression, but ultimately find myself more fulfilled when I try and lay back and weave progression with genuine attention and enjoying the "unproductive" things, looking to make nifty floor patterns and building materials and interacting with friends.