I'm loving this game, I've only just gotten settled in after messing around in a few games. I found my optimum level of automation is to leave most of my ships on automatic to patrol for pirates, having one or two fleets I move around to do strikes or defend certain locations, and having automated ship design so I don't have to update all my ships when I get a better component (but I've made one or two designs of my own anyway). Looking at the statistics and how the game works out, I seem to have discovered something interesting, the game is balanced, that's rare, but it's much better than most 4x games, the different species have different advantages that can require a different play style to take proper advantage of it. But every species does get bonuses that balance out (more or less, some a little less so). Better mining means more resources which means cheaper ships, and a stronger economy, a boost to trade means more money, population growth means your empire will fill out faster. there's one or two "war" species that every space faring 4x game has, but they have a balance too, lower war weariness means they suffer less attrition, and better troop training and combat, means they can take over more planets (which is much faster than colonizing planets). High tech races have stronger and more efficient ships, but usually less of them, and they don't get much of an advance in economy, a low tech and a high tech empire of the same size, won't have much of a difference in economic strength (though the high tech one will kick butt easily).
Also I've started a securian empire that I've called "Captain Kirk's Fan Club" the fan club is constantly expanding, it controls more territory than it's two neighbors, and has a trade agreement with a nearby science heavy group of guys, that it has been buying technology off of.