Running into some frustration with colonies and doing literally anything but micro-managing them.
It feels like you can either have colonies, or you can explore and invest in other aspects of the game. Doing both, however, feels incredibly tedious and unreasonable. I am running Nexerelin, so that is of course adding to this issue, but I'm just hoping I can figure out a better means to juggling multiple aspects of the game at once without needing to completely focus on the mico-management.
For example, a Tri-Tachyon fleet came to disrupt one of my mining/refining colonies. I hung around in system to deal with them, but the fleet was laughably weak (a couple destroyers, maybe 5 ships), and random fast picket fleets of mine picked them off before I could even join the battle. So, I reloaded and used that time to do some more exploring in the meantime, and what happens? My fleets somehow didn't even interdict the tiny fleet (that they steamrolled when I was in system), and the ground defenses had to deal with them. They did, and they won, yet my industry was STILL disrupted regardless, even though the tooltip said that Tri-Tachyon's attempt failed.
This is what I mean by things feeling like you NEED to be present and micro-managing everything unless you want to fail and get your colonies screwed over at every turn. It feels like an issue.
Also, I currently have no active hostilities, no invasions, etc, so I take that time to go explore. After hitting two systems, I notice all four of my colonies are at much lower stability. Why? Apparently ALL of my comm relays have gone down. Why? Who knows, but I'm now forced to fly all the way back, cancel my entire expedition, just to reactivate the comm relays myself. There really should be a way for your colonies and fleets to handle minor things like this themselves, but as far as I know, they can't.
It honestly feels like you're just forced to micro-manage every last aspect of colony business yourself, with your personal fleet. Got a shortage? You have to pull from stockpiles yourself, with your personal fleet, to move to address said shortages, or your colony is hobbled for x amount of time (when you should just be able to tell your colonies to move those stockpiles around themselves). Some kind of shipment going somewhere? Better escort it personally, lest you risk a high rng rate of losing it, leading to more shortages (for multiple cycles, it feels like I've had "-2 stacks from a lost shipment" active on at least one colony at any point). Literally any sort of invasion or disruption? Good luck leaving that up to your colonies if you aren't personally present, even if it's "likely to be defeated in orbit", because your colonies just cannot consistently handle anything on their own, even with 100% fleet quality and 150%+ fleet sizes on every colony. If you aren't there, things are probably not going to go well.
I know that these frustrations are greatly placed upon Nexerelin adding mechanics to the game that can only be managed so well with what exists in base game thus far (which is probably why they are not yet officially in game in the first place). Having further options of commanding your colonies and AI fleets to do various tasks would alleviate these issues greatly, allowing you greater freedom to take on other tasks instead of being forced to micro-manage colonies to such an extreme level.
So I guess my question is, what suggestions or tips does anyone have to handle colony management while performing other tasks, like exploring, without being forced to cater to your colonies nonstop? I love the colony system for tons of reasons, but I really just wish there was a better way to not sacrifice every other aspect of the game once you colonize anything. It really does feel like you have to choose one or the other, unless you want constant, tedious issues and management.