It's An Opera

While my first love is Traveller, I've gamed many science fiction settings.

Star Frontiers was TSR's competitor.  The tech was crunchy without explanation and it introduced the idea of aft=down to me.  The tech was a bit more grounded than the super-science space opera of Traveller.

Traveller's tech, while being operatic and super-science, was self consistent with most of the implications of that tech being allowed and accounted for.  This is why it stands out and keeps on trucking as a setting 43 years later.

I've played a few iterations of Star Trek as a role playing game.  Some more enjoyable than others.

The problem with Star Trek is the canon television and movies just flat ignores many of the implications of the technology they demonstrate on screen.

David Brin mentioned something like this when he was asked to provide background for his Uplift universe to Steve Jackson Games for their GURPS supplement.  Paraphrasing, "in the novel it's enough to tell the reader there are mountains on the horizon; in a game you not only have to know how far those mountains are from the group, but what's beyond them.  The characters, literally, have minds of their own and aren't bound by you narrative."

Ironically, it was Gene Roddenberry himself who did the tech best by not explaining a gorram thing.  Next Generation is the most guilty about showing tech, giving contradictory technobabble and then ignoring it thereafter.

Because original Star Trek has no continuity, it doesn't really matter; but no world changing tech is ever displayed.

Next Generation displayed the fountain of youth.  Yes, it was accidental, but so many discoveries are.  That they were able to understand it well enough to reverse it tells us that it's not an insurmountable engineering problem and forever-young would be available in time to prevent Star Trek: Picard.

Star Trek ultimately fails at being science fiction because the science part is tossed.  Niven defined it best, make your assumptions and follow them wherever they lead, not matter how far.

Known Space has stories like "Safe at any speed" which demonstrate the implications of the tech taken all the way.  Niven has stated that the end-game of the implications are why he stopped writing in that setting, he was having trouble coming up with situations that couldn't be quickly and neatly solved by technology he'd created and presented as canon.

So far, though, I've not gamed much in a science fiction setting that's all that hard-science.

Albedo (Erma Felna) comes closest.  The only physics destroying tech is the jump drive and their fusion drive appears to be way too efficient.  The problem with Albedo is the cartoon animals as cast problem.  That and since it was based on a comic book...  And the author never finished the story!

FuzzyGeff tried to get me interested in GURPS: Transhuman Space.  It's very hard science; but it used concepts that I wasn't ready for at the time.  Thanks to The Expanse and Ghost in the Shell, I think I could do it now.

Not that I get to game all that much.  It's hard to find your own time let alone coordinate with people with their own varying schedules.