Some time between 2000-2004, i think, i bought a pc game where the plot is aliens have attacked earth and left the planet in ruins, we took one of their ships and reverse engineered it and are setting out after them for revenge. The gameplay was rts resource management that felt similar to command on conquer. The unique aspect was the world maps were full 360 spheres that you couldn't see all at once and had to rotate. You could ship resources between conquered planets but it took time and the enemy could try and retake a world after you left.
Posting LLM responses as your comments is like posting Google results. At the very least, don't subject us to the whole diatribe of the program if you insist on sharing it. Just post the game name or whatever.
Yup, thought of Homeworld too. If you remember a consuming biological opponent it was probably Homeworld: Cataclysm renamed Emergence due to Blizzard's level 85 lawyers.
The description is similar but i don't remember there being space combat, there may have been but it would have been later in the game. What i'm thinking of was ground based units