It has a very light colony management element, similar to the crusade events of Wrath of the Righteous, without the army management. Very unobtrusive imo

The colony management is much better then the crusade stuff in PF:WoTR (I know people who quit after trying that even when they moved the crusade to story mode).
I found it much better and interesting.
If you do buy the game I would buy the DLC or the season pass as the first DLC is very well done and adds lots of important stuff to the base game.

Thanks all. It sounds like it's much more manageable and I'm looking forward to picking it up now.

If I can understand it all then a hamster can understand it. On the other hand I did find the pathfinder series a bit to much for me to swallow.

Oh, it's not about understanding it, it's about doing it and how distracting it is from the 'main' adventure.

Aside from the few things that require your direct intervention at the planet everything for it can be done from your ship wherever

It is unobtrusive and entirely optional. You may do it from ship or even mid mission through a management screen, I like to do it during downtimes between fights when I want a break.

Originally posted by Soma:

Oh, it's not about understanding it, it's about doing it and how distracting it is from the 'main' adventure.

Distracting? I enjoy it. I like managing my companions, ship and trade. It's all part of the game. It's not like a mini game or something that rips you out of the game, it is the game and your job as a rouge trader.
It's those things that bring the whole thing together and immerse you. make you feel the part.

The colony management is optional and isn't difficult. It pays to do it because you can increase your standing with some of the factions and get access to their best gear faster. You can also increase your profit factor and get additional resources which are then tradeable or can be used for further development.

I should add that getting stuff from the factions isn't all that important because the best gear seems to come from loot drops or through missions.

It's not difficult but taking one option may foreclose another, so it does make sense to pay at least some attention to the requirements for building at the next levels.

There is an achievement for building all colonies to the highest level if you care about those. If colony management has any impact on the endings, I'm not aware of it.