The first attempt at what is tentatively called rts4x genre; essentially an rts version of games like master of orion and galactic civilization. There are three factions, a nice variety of ships, and it's pretty as all hell. What I like the most is because there's very little copy protection you can easily use one copy to install on multiple computers for LAN games (I managed to get a total of 8 friends online via one router and a hub); which is great because a lot of newer games are eschewing LAN capability and forcing people to make internet games... then just having everyone join that one internet game which essentially eliminates the point of hanging out with friends while blowing **** up (looking at you current beta of starcraft 2). There are also only three resources; crystal, mineral, and credits.

The three factions can essentially be summed up as follows;

TEC: The majority of humanity belong to this massive coalition; it has the weakest overall ships but have a devastating civilian research tree that by the endgame causes them to make money by others spending money and also additional income from their own trade structures. The end result is that the TEC win most wars of attrition.
Advent: A minority of humanity from a planet resembling Arakis (from Dune) which was exiled due to psionics, bizarre experiments, and dangerous religious beliefs. These people have ships roughly on par with the Vasari (but cheaper) and have a good balance between both the civilian and military trees; the essential all rounder faction.
Vasari: An alien race (possibly insectoid; they have an exoskeleton) that several thousand years ago performed an experiment that released or created... something. They have never seen it; it has simply destroyed the original vasari system, chased after the remnants, and as the vasari have continued to flee they leave behind beacons... which gradually also are destroyed. Whatever it is; it is catching up with them. The Vasari are based around the backstory that they enslave the local populace, replace losses, build new ships if they can, and then resume running from whatever it is while leaving the enslaved race to die fighting whatever it may be. The resulting gameplay is a fast paced military race with the best ships (though somewhat expensive towards the beginning of a game); this race excels on the offensive but not quite so much otherwise. As the game progresses and the player goes up the tech tree the ships actually become cheaper (thanks slaves!) and the end result is a massive fleet of superior ships. However, they are fairly easy to eliminate if found early on.

The structures are relatively the same, all the lighters ships are essentially the same plus or minus a few points, it's the heavier ships and the crazy-expensive/awesome capital ships that show off racial specialties and give some variety. Capital ships also level up over time from level 1 to 10 and gain additional abilities as they level (my favorite is the TEC super combat-y capital ship the Kol Battleship's ability "finest hour"; essentially makes it worth multiple capital ships for about thirty seconds, increases health, damage, the works).

The main downside to the game is the pacing; even on above normal speeds this game takes many many hours and, to date, the shortest game I've finished was at around four hours and that was with only two players. With eight real players it took a total of about 20 hours spread over three days, luckily it supports multiplayer game saves so we could you know... sleep. And eat.

Anyway I'm done ranting; you should go try it out.