Basically it's like ES2 or any other kind of 4X games. The difference is that you start from 0 with just one small ship, then you need to make money to buy a second one and hire a captain for it. You need to upgrade the ship and captain skills, then you can give any order, "follow me", "attack there", "patrol", "defend my buildings" (yes, you can also build space stations and land on them, you can start your production of goods and sell by yourself or with a cargo and a captain or even NPCs can come to your station and buy/sell products. For example, if you produce meat, you need cereals and water, so your ships or NPCs ships, come to buy meat and sell you water and cereals, of course for the price you set and quantity you set). You can also drive a capital ship with many small ships inside it and you can literally walk to small ships on the bridge and take one. This is useful in battles, you give the capital control to a captain with the order "attack" and you can give support in FPS with a small ship. There are also many other features, but for answer your question, the 4X mode is there too.