[Makinus]

One online strategy title that i like is "Shattered Galaxy" and it can be played for free, the difference from the free and the paid version is just a 10% penalty in XP for the free version and you cant vote in faction elections, but it is a very fun game, with a lot of tactical combat and the XP penalty is very small...

Another fun game that i got recently is "Light of Altair", very fun space colony sim with some combat thrown in... it has a lengthly campaign (i didn´t finish it yet) but there are talks in the developer forums that they will be adding skirmish/sandbox play in a upcoming patch...