I quite like StarSector too. It clearly owes a lot to the Escape Velocity series which I love.
StarSector's focus on colony management is super fun though. The recent patch was also quite good and seemed to add more story elements which I appreciate. I appreciate the unique looking ships even though some of them end up looking very ugly.
I love working with the AIs. Smuggling them, integrating them into colonies, doing other spoilery things with them. I wish there were deeper mechanics there and more story too, but that could still happen.