Eventually, I might be able to build ships next year, also I don't see a way to start exploring and even if I did... I'd lose my explorers all the time. Even if I were able to somehow find a planet (very unlikely) they would just add my other planets to their automated attack route?! pffffff seems not worth my time...

Lucky you, you realized quicker than me that this game cannot offer any fun game play because it was killed by bots and the developers just don't care about that. I have wasted much more time than you, to get to that conclusion :(