This game has a good economic model. You can purchase factories, ships, and goods. You can get them in "legit" way or the "risky" way. Each action you take will influence the overall universe, although the system seems to put some limitations on the effects so you won't break the economy. For example, shipyards and equipment docks will always be rebuilt. This is so you can still purchase the unique ships and equipments, and keep you from getting bored. Of course, you may also argue that the player should have more influence on the world. Well, if you are into that, you could always download sector takeover mod and disable this feature.
The game is highly moddable. After finishing the vanillia for the first time with a Bank account mod, I had installed X-Tended mod, which has an entirely different map and lots of new ships and even more features.
One thing that I have to complain about is the unrealistic flight model. Unlike older series like Edge of Chaos and Evochron, the spaceships you fly in this game doesn't fly like spaceships; it flies like a plane in atmosphere. You need to keep the engine running to travel at constant speed, which is contrary to Newtonian physics model. If you are a big physics fan, you will probably get turned off by this. Another contradiction is the presence of sound in space. No, I am not complaining about the in-cockpit view. I am complaining about the external view. Realistic sims don't have sounds while the player switches to the external view.
The game has ironed out most of the bugs, the only bugs left are plot-script specific ones. Plots are not that important to the game. It's important to remember when you are in a plot, don't do anything fancy. These are the rules that will alleviate you most of the headaches: 1) Once you start a plot, finish it! Don't dwindle, even though it says Time Limit: <Unlimited> It is okay to pause before initiating the next plot stage. 2) Don't use a fancy ship. Fancy as in "unpurchasable", "hacked (i.e. obtained through modding scripts)", "special rewards collected from other plots", etc. For example, I used an unpuchasable (but capturable) "Hyperion Vanguard" (M6) for a Terran mission to pick up two astronauts. It turns out I wasn't able to complete the mission because one of the pilot was "docking" into the docking bay instead of entering my ship. Hyperion is the only M6 vessel that can carry fighters, which means it's the only vessel that can carry fighters and dock to regular stations which the two pilots ejected from. I guess it's somewhat excusable for them to neglect this bug. 3) Try complete early plots ASAP, especially Operation Final Fury. Having a higher combat rank makes them a lot more difficult. 4) Save, Save, Save! Missions requiring you to board a ship with marines are extremely unpredictable. The marines fails the boarding randomly. They can fail at any stage. They can get killed. Once the ship is captured, the onboard equipments in the captured ship is also random. This list can go on forever...
Despite all these complains, I still believe this is one of the most enjoyable space game I have played. The space is huge, the structures and ships are multifarious, the graphics looks gorgeous, the ecosystem(as in modding and support) is solid, the economic model is good, and the AI is pretty though.
I can't play Multiplayer games these days anyway, so I am not concerned about the lack of MP in this game. But you might want to consider this if you aim for a MP space game.
