The standard settings are:

Single star random map, usually.

Locked Teams

Pirates Off

Quick Start on

Faster speeds for all speed settings.

The faster speed settings take a little getting used to and you need to be familiar enough with the game to know what you want to do early on without thinking about it too much.  But once you get some experience they won't bother you at all.  The benefit of the faster speeds is that it decreases the length of time to play a game, which has always been an issue.  As the game progresses and fleets become larger and larger, the speed starts to revert back to merely Fast speed and eventually slower than that if it starts lagging a little.  So, it's probably not as bad as it sounds.  It's really just an issue for the first 15 minutes as it messes up your timing a little bit.

I hope you can get in on some good 4v4s and 5v5s since Diplomacy is where the PvP action is at.

It is taking me a while to get used to Faster. The beginning vs AIs can be a little daunting with so much scouting and so many fronts plus trying to cap asteroids with the colonizer-turret tactic. But once you get used to it ... it is hard to go back lol. I need more practice microing battles with it on Faster setting. Gets a little rough using overseers and subverters well. I might have to give up stacking in the empire tree. Its funny since going to faster speeds made me abandon fleets altogether (damn moving to reform fleet was killing me).