Unless you set a ship or fleet to Guard or Sentry mode.

allthumbs, for a game like this, most folks develop a regular path through a given turn; different people will start by checking different things, but basically you want to be sure you've got ship production the way you want it, are building planetary improvements at a reasonable pace, and are happy with where your ships are stationed or where they're going. In the early game, your ship work will be about scouting the map and planting colonies; later, warships usually dominate the map.

But that's ineed a huge oversimplification. There are some threads around here that kind of work like strat guides, and the wiki is helpful, especially once you get to know the terminology of the game a bit better. I'd suggest that you just jump in the sandbox and start messing around. Even if you do very little other than clicking the Turn button, stuff will happen that should give you ideas about what you maybe should have done earlier or about what you might ask here on the forums.

Some tips I see regularly include:

• Keep an eye on how much you're spending--building too many improvements and ships too soon can break your economy; some players hardly ever rush-buy anything in the early game
  
• Remember to move your starting colony ship onto your homeworld so you can fill it completely; it starts out with 100 but can hold 250 (building population is the most important thing you can do to increase your income; larger starting pops grow faster)
  
• Consider upgrading your starting miner (if you're playing DA or TA) to another colony ship

Really, though, given that there are two expansions that both change the base game significantly and a very large set of basic game settings available, perhaps the best starting tip is to figure out which version you like best and what you enjoy in terms of the maps. The game is flexible enough that you can get something almost like a 'skirmish' mode on Tiny maps with very fast tech speed, and at the other end you can get a game that takes tens of hours to finish and has thousands of elements (ships, starbases, colonies) by the time its over.

Then this is the game for you.

Eventually you will play at a level where the AI can beat you. When in a space battle watch the screen at the bottom closely. It will show you what type of weapon the enemy is using and the damage it's doing, and the results of your weapons. If you find that your ships are doing no damage or just getting hammered it's time (or past time) to design your own ship. I usually play the terrans and the default ships start off as laser/shield ships. If I encounter a race of missle throwers I often need to redesign my ships by adding the best missile defenses I have.

I didn't appreciate the ship building at first because I'm not really creative; but when I realized the strategy part I just created the ugliest useful things and enjoyed the game.

I would suggest only using war ships you designed, except maybe for the basic defended if you want to just get something in orbit. The predesigned ships don't optimize for your exact techs and miniturization.

About the game, even though you have never played a 4X game before it won'ttake long to learn. Enjoy the newness of it while you can. When to end a turn? First, the turn button will turn green when you have moved all of your ships. Early in the game you will mostly be dealing colony ships, with the economy / tax sliders (if thats your style), research tree and your planet improvement queue. When you have given each of these a look-see you are ready to end turn. Things to always keep and eye on is your rate of losing money vs. your treasury (yea, we all lose money at the beginning) and your morale rate. 

Your population will grow faster with a planetary morale of 75% and 100%. It will stop growing at 42%. Keeping taxes low at the start of the game is a good way to hold 100% approval (remember that its for each planet).

Play with the tabs and see what info you get on each screen and what you can accomplish on these screens.

These forumns are a great place for info of all play levels. So come back whenever you need an answer.

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