Do you have to pay for it?
Yeah but it's a kickass game if you are into space sims (like the old wing commander series or something, some of my fave games) and strategy. It's not twitch based (ie. Joystick) but more targeting/command based. Think of it as being the captain of a ship in Star Trek as opposed to piloting an X-Wing.
You can fit your ships ANY way you want, at all, lasers, machine guns (autocannons), hybrids (like railguns), torpedoes, cruise missiles, smartbombs (AOE bombs), shields, armor, resists/boosts/repair for both of them, energy (Capacitor), ships ranging from the size of a football field to the size of a small country, thousands of solar systems, player owned stations/planet mining operations, you can mine, kill NPCs, missions, PvP, trade, run cargo, play the market, etc. etc.
Also, skills require time to train - they train whether you're online or offline - so there's no 'grinding' for skills like in other MMO's. No level cap. It would take approximately 27 years to train EVERY skill in the game to level 5 (max level) but there are so many paths there would be absolutely no reason to train them all unless you were insane. (Maybe if the game is still around when I'm in my 50's I'll have all the skills)
Gotta be patient to play the game. If you enjoy strategy, space sims, trading, etc, you'll like it. Free trial to test it out though.