It takes a lot of time to get familiar with how the game works, how combat works, and how you should fit your ships for your play style. Definitely can feel like a job and/or hopeless at first, but once that initial investment of time has been put in the game can definitely be played casually.

It's a lot of fun to just mess around with a few people in some cheap frigates (basic small ships), sometimes more so than the actual "expensive" areas of the game.