A few things have happened in my game after a year though I have yet to encounter the generated starting computer-controlled NPR.
First is the UNSC Providence, which has been in commission for several months now and is busy conducting training exercises. It currently has six 5k ton frigates, five 1k ton battalion dropships and with the advice of sheb, four of each of my newly designed 1k ton geological and gravitational survey vessels. Six more geo and grav ships will be built (along with 1 more frigate) to use the maximum hangar capacity of the huge ship.
Economy wise, money and minerals are still flowing in nicely, other than gallicite. On Earth, there are only 4000 tons in stockpile. With 151 ships and 50 orbital defense weapons in orbit, its slowly withering away the stockpile. There's a lot of gallicite in different systems but it'll take some time to mine and transfer them back. Next is that I discovered few interesting things on 2 adjacent systems, Sirius (2 jumps away from Sol) and the system it leads up to, Procyon. I've discovered this two systems on my early explorations but stopped due to the precursors being on both systems. Anyway, the first one is the presence of a 0.0 colony cost planet (my very first in all of my Aurora games) on Procyon. It's 3 jumps away and not too far from the jump points of its adjacent system. I just didn't bother to check at first due to the aliens. Interestingly, after dealing with the precursors and completing the geo scans on both systems, my Empire discovers an alien ruin on each. One is a ruined colony on Procyon and the other is a ruined outpost on Sirius. Xenologist are already busy studying both for a few months already but have yet to turn up anything.
The only problem I have right now is the gallicite shortages I mentioned and the constant interrupts of Precursor mines which is annoying me. I'm not sure if I'd want to try and spend a lot of fuel just trying to find them but if they start to really irritate me, I'll do so and deal with them with the use of my 1m ton ships AM sensors, so long as I can correctly predict what system those mines are in.