Made my first colony, focus on being an exploration waypoint and tech-mining. Alpha core on the first month. Surprisingly enough, the colony actually gives me some money, even if it will take about 30 months until it pays itself off. I also had my first pirate raid, it was just a fleet of some cruisers, destroyers and frigates, nothing hard to deal with. One good thing about increased population thresholds is that I don't have to pay much attention to the growth meter, it won't finish any time soon.
Does tech-mining auto sell itself after some time, or do I still have to close the shop manually? And do alpha cores provide any benefit to tech-mining at all? They don't produce any commodity anymore.