Simple strategy question, i.e. how do you start

[Jeku]

Been playing the SEV demo as of late, and been wondering how you veterans out there usually start off.

Do you usually stay in your home sector and colonize each and every last planet first, building up tons of resources and ships, then start exploring warp points?

Or do you initially create a few frigates and explore a bunch of different sectors first?

And another question while I'm here--- in SEV the hex grids stay red until you've explored them, but is there any way to get a ship to automatically explore the red parts of the grid? It sucks manually steering ships over the red hex's.

Thanks!