I tend to find as I go further back in time, stuff becomes more impenetrable. Or I lose focus or something. That said, I don’t really do serious reading where I fill up the margins with notes and discuss it with comrades. Just hang out at a bar drinking beer and reading Parenti. shrug
Honestly, I keep coming back to stormworks as a decent vehicle builder game. Not much to do outside of building a functional vehicle, but you can get into the nitty gritty of how power routes through your vehicle, what servos do what etc etc.
Am throwing together a design for a large long-term nuclear powered VTOL, for which there could be no possible negative.