I'm refugeeOG from: US server, Varians faction, Warpfire alliance. I'm the 2nd-to-top ranked overall player, because I am addicted; I love this game. I have been playing for about a year now,and still going strong. The devs keep adding new content and fixing stuff, so you won't get bored. You can get to where I am now by either spending nothing, a little, or a lot; the choice is up to you, and it only affects how fast you get there, so the game is very fair.
The PvP combat is amazing, faction vs. faction, where you fight for control of special regularly moving "storm sectors" that contain rare rocks essential for the crafting of great PvP gear. Also, the game has faction alerts: built-in mini-wars, faction vs. faction, where the dominating faction of those military objectives will win Solar (the premium currency), Keys (to open lockboxes for a nice chance at Premium ships and other awesome PvP consumables), and domination points ... DP (which collect daily to give you daily boxes to open, containing nukes, golden (premium) robots and ammo, etc.). Basically, the game gives you great incentives to play and fight, so you never have to sit around at station; you will always have something to do, if you fancy it.
Combat is a refreshing soft-twitch; none of this "mouse-to-select-and-then- take-a-nap" business. You attack the ship closest to where you are pointing, but enemy ships can also block for their allies and block important objectives, like the sector mining / command outpost. There are fighters (DPS glass cannons), healers (ship repair, EMP-interdiction, support) and tanks (base busters, blockers, damage soakers). Range matters. You have close range blaster weapons, longer range launcher weapons, AOE and single target type weapons, and NUKES ... awesome variable range, massively damaging AOE battle-changing packages of pure chaos.
Players get space in station, which is upgradable, to store their materials, crafting parts, PvP consumables, and ships. You can have many ships, so you have the freedom to choose the ship-type you wish to fly, and then make a change anytime it suits you. Death penalties are mild, just enough to encourage death avoidance, but no loss of anything that you will miss, which encourages players to get out there and take risks and have fun in the PvP. Basically, the only penalty for death is a bit of "red-shield" that automatically heals inside station or you can "speed-heal" it for Solar.
Players come from all over the world to play; no country or region is locked out. You can play directly from facebook, kong, PC browser from their website, Apple devices (iOS), Android / Google devices, Amazon / Kindle devices ... play from PC, Desktop, Laptop, Notebook, Tablet, Smartphone, etc.