Very little grinding if you do it right, due to many choices and ways to play the game:
Looks very interesting, I love the space genre, always wanted to try this but p2p is a no go for me.
If I ever get a job that's giving steady income, not the usual student job you can barely find, this might change.
Closest thing I had was when the multiplayer of Freelancer was strong. I remember being a double agent spy kinda guy to two factions, leading my Hungarian clan that was full of awesome guys, we kicked out a faction from it's home system and locked it for three hours, three hours of constant attack, and we had only four people! The said faction had to bring allies, and we fought 11v4, and still we kept killing them. Admins had to interfere to stop our wars all the time.
Also I won a universe race with my crappy internet, I knew all the shortcuts. Great times.