There is nothing wrong with that, usually games are much more interesting when the enemy has more planets, ships, ect.

A lot depends on the size of your game. I play gigantic maps and in this case it's not necessarily how fast you explore but the rate at which you can produce colony ships that counts.

In all cases I simply use my colony ships as scouts and use my flagship to get money from anomalies.

In a smaller galaxy, I think most people agree that it's best to research up to impulse drive ASAP, but you still should be sending colony ships out as fast as possible.

In a large galaxy, I think it's a mistake to outright buy much of anything. You need that initial 5000 bc to last as long as possible because it's inevitable that you'll be deficit spending for quite some time. I do buy my first factory and then build my manufacturing capital on my home planet followed by building another 3 or 4 factories dependent on bonus tiles. My goal is to produce a colony ship every other turn (or even a bit faster).

You need to keep your approval at 100% to keep your pop growth able to sustain producing that many colony ships. I also usually take the 70% pop growth racial ability to support this. With all this I'm able to produce a colony ship every other turn and fill them with 500 colonists each.

If you can't keep your approval at 100% or you don't have the pop growth to support 500 colonists every other turn, reduce it to what you can support, generally at least 300 is almost always possible.

If you do this you'll outcolonize the AI at any level, which puts you in a far better position than if you don't.

WOW.....I just learned something new so that is why the AI beats me all the time. That is great advice thanks. Do you put the surveyor on the colony ship too?

Do you put the surveyor on the colony ship too?

I've never put a survey module on any ship that I've ever built, but there are people that swear by researching sensors early and building extra survey ships to get money anomalies. It's not an unreasonable thing to do, a few extra 1000 bc anomalies can make a big difference in extending your colony rush. However, I would never waste space on a colony ship for a survey module, I want 500 colonists and as many engines as I can get, I even usually forgo life support if it gets me an extra parsec per week of speed.

Myself as well. I don't believe I have ever put life support on any ship I've made... even though I always research all of the related techs...

I usually put one life support on fighting ships and transports so that if I want to strike deep within an opponents teritory I can, but that's usually late game.

Once I get Eyes of the Universe I create a couple of fast scouts to finish exploring the galaxy. I put enough life support on these to make sure that I can get everywhere in the galaxy.