im liking the interactions with minor alien races. it helps the galaxy feel more full than the first one did. I got this pretty amazing "norast xenith" from a sidequest early on. if theres a way to repair these bonus ships i havent seen it.
I also like how each race has a variety of ships to throw at you in combat, although so far ive only been able to acquire one type of ship per race to use as escorts.
my only 2 gripes are that mining planets with the lander can be pretty tedious, and at least of the alien races ive encountered so far, their theme music isnt very memorable, which is odd because i like the other songs in the game.