Simple enough question, is it on par with the X series?

I am a few hours in now and it seems to have some similarities. Of course it does not really have -- what? -- the decade of development as the various X - iterations. So far it seems a lot more relaxed, I haven't been into combat yet. It also has more of a turn-based game feel, as you end up spending a lot of time on the Orbital map, directing ships from sector to sector, which takes days in-game time, directing your AI fleets.

The play cycle therefore is more like: Order all your AI fleets. Clock "fast forwards" until one of them reaches their destiantion. Give new orders. If your own personal ship arrives somewhere, you fly in real time in that sector to dock and do whatever, and when you leave the sector it is back to Orbital map, click fast-forward, etc.

Building stations is straight forward and I do not think there are those massive complexes with conveyer belts that X had for a while.

It's kind of like a streamlined X. Not quite as opaque, although it has it's moments (like trade routes)... much more menu driven than X, in fact if they replaced the real-time flight stuff with RNG battles and lists it would probably make a really great mobile game.