http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X³:_Reunion
As far as I make out it is like eve online and star trader (mobile phone)
You build up trade and military relationships in a huge universe, gain status, resources and new spaceships
The enemy alien forces are known as The Cock ...
I'm going to try it after the recommendation of a friend
I spent hours playing star trader and eve so it sounds promising type of game, though single player
Game is from 2005 afaik (recent version is X3 Terran Conflict) so should run on laptop
Reunion also had some major issues with the ship's AI, they had a tendency to just crash into capital ships and space stations when ordered to attack them instead of maintaining a maximum distance and firing, and it made large battles a micromanagement nightmare. I don't know if they fixed that in Terran Conflict, but I really hope they did.