I've never been a "space combat" kind of gamer. But I do seem to remember enjoying Space Quest 5 for being captain of my own ship & being given missions. Anyone know any good space-faring games where the emphasis is less on combat & more on adventurous missions?

Mass Effect.

Pretty much exactly what you are asking for.

Star Control 2 is also down that lane.

And FTL a little bit.

... has combat in every single mission you stumble upon. Take a look at Space Rangers 2, it's right here on GOG. It still has quite a bit of combat, but it can mostly be ignored and you even get text adventure-esque missions. It's great.

edit: Oh well, it's been pulled off the catalogue as I can see. You might try and look for it elsewhere, I really think it's exactly what you are looking for.

Put the game on easy, and it is a piece of cake. The emphasis of ME certainly isn't the combat.

Yeah, ME on easy. More talking in those games than combat really. Third one might be a little tougher.

The X series maybe?

Not a lot of sci-fi RPGs because publishers have been told fantasy or GTFO.

But that is just not true. Combat:talking is about 50:50 if I'm generous, and I'm talking about the first game here. Vast majority of problems in the game require you to shoot trough to them, and even if you come to a peaceful solution, it basically means it'll just require a bit less shooting. I agree that ME games are an amazing adventure, but saying that they're not at all combat oriented is just untrue. And it gets worse in the second and third part, which continue the story and basically throw you into a combat corridor with a dialogue at the end.

X series are great tho, if not really all that much mission-oriented. You can get missions tho, some of them are fun, some not really, and there's ton of them scattered around the game's universe.

S.P.A.Z. ?

Star Trek Online have diplomatic quests,
X series