Quoting 52500, reply 40man, my girlfriend is going to be pissed that im going to be ignoring her even more than usual. i am patiently waiting for the beta. super really amzingly patient, like massive ... I WANT! NOW!
 

Spend more time with your girlfriend. The game is good, really good, but relationships are far more important.

 

If you play against the AI, just set things up where you know it is safe to leave the game alone for a few hours. If in a one star map, capture the main choke point(s), usually the pirate base. Equip with starbase, point defenses, repair facilities, whatever you'd like, and amass your entire fleet there and have them hold their ground adjacent to the starbase defense area. I often do this and leave the game running as a sort of cool interactive screen saver. Works best for watching space battles if, once you are set up, you set the enemy opponent to Unfair Aggressive so they send ships more often.

 

But really, spend more time with your gf, she is far more important than any game, no matter how awesome the game.