Yeah! Two days ago, I finally managed to upgrade my Explorer Skill to 20, built my first ship overnight and started the first expedition yesterday. Guess what, the second expedition gave me this little boy here:
So in "only" slightly more than 5 weeks, I managed to casually grind my way through the darkness of building and upgrading skills - which is really boring - to finally get to own a second planet. I hope the game picks up a bit of steem (pun intended!) from now on and - of course - when fighting starts. Short disclaimer: I haven't bought any chests or spent any money on the game other than my investment in 
However, in general it would be worth considering whether a game that's a bit faster for newbies who would like a little more action. Basically logging in once or twice a day is nice for casual players like myself, especially in the long run. But having a bit more to do from the start maybe could cause a bit of fun.
What could this be? Maybe some more active colonization on an existing planet (Sim City style), more interaction from the early start by having kind of a small transporter, a scouting ship that's easy to build and can only, well, scout, but not colonize a planet. Or simply reducing all the times needed for anything by a factor of 2 or 3 (I know this would be impossible for existing players, but maybe there'll be another universe some time).
Now back to Grunto!