OMG! Battleships Forever has simply the best space-battle coding!!!
If only it could have the epic scale and graphics of SINS, and STILL play that way!!!
Also, there was a little game called "GravityWell", which is what I thought SINS was going to be like before I got it... ...GravityWell had
Fully Automated empire building, and all you did was collect planets and attack ships
GravityWell is like
Self-Replicating Tradeports in SINS, everything is taken care of, and you just focus on flying your ship around, planting ownership flags on planets for your robot-freighters to colonize!
Combine the good aspects of all three, and you have
The Perfect Game!