I have been playing a few games as the Arulzi Collective. While I have found the trading and empire building fun, the combat is really challenging and long. Basically boarding ships was the only way I could defeat them in the early game (my ship weapons were too weak). Then I played as the Galactic Honor Guard and boy it was a different experience. My ship was a whirlwind of death. Combat was really fun.

So I created a few galaxies and took down the DPS of the starting ship for each empire.

Arulzi Collective 3.15, 0.24, 0.32, 1.33, 0.30
Ecumenical Holdings Corporation 21.64, 18.28, 38.06, 8.10, 39.82
Exo-Terran Alliance 1.71, 11.02, 7.32, 3.23, 14.32
Galatic Honor Guard 41.48, 36.97, 16.77, 144.53, 50.81
Interstellar Republic Order 18.11, 60.66, 403.11, 33.90, 128.78
Qannor Republic 0.87, 5.79, 0.75, 4.37, 5.47

I can see there is a lot of random variation (which is cool that is what the game is about!) and that certain empires are generally better than others, which is also cool. I just wonder about the really low DPS scores some empires can get (Really low DPS scores can make completing even the tutorial battle a bit of chore). Maybe you should set a minimum global DPS to prevent the really low scores (which can make the early game less fun).  Just a suggestion either for this version or the new X version.