I've found planets to be pretty buggy. If I were you I'd save up some creds and make a space station. Just make sure to build it in a sector that is not in an orbit path (purple ring on map) because I've also found building in an orbit to be buggy.
1. Shielding and armor blocks are important. I made my first mining ship out of hull, jumped near a pirate station by accident and got ripped in half in one shot. Jump drives are a must for most ships I think. I haven't messed with warp gates yet, but I'm sure they're useful. If you want to fight then weapon systems will be important :p
2. Place one on a turret or ship, leave the ship, press R on it to activate it and change its settings. If you re-enter the ship it switches the AI off and the only way I've found to switch it back on is to press R on the block.
3. Craft grey hulls, turn them into other colors, then make those into armor.
4. Just aesthetics.
5. This is actually one of the reasons I moved off of a planet (besides the bugs). It's a pain in the butt to find your base. I used beacons instead of regular lights because they're brighter, but yeah it's still a pain.
6. Head to an asteroid belt. Check your map for yellow rings (check the wiki for an image). Also enable asteroid markers in your nav window. That way it'll show you waypoints for nearby asteroids. You can also check the nav window to find out what ores nearby asteroids contain.
7. Yes, per plate.
8. Yes but you only get scrap which is not as valuable as ore I don't think.
9. I don't think so.
1. Shielding and armor blocks are important. I made my first mining ship out of hull, jumped near a pirate station by accident and got ripped in half in one shot. Jump drives are a must for most ships I think. I haven't messed with warp gates yet, but I'm sure they're useful. If you want to fight then weapon systems will be important :p
2. Place one on a turret or ship, leave the ship, press R on it to activate it and change its settings. If you re-enter the ship it switches the AI off and the only way I've found to switch it back on is to press R on the block.
3. Craft grey hulls, turn them into other colors, then make those into armor.
4. Just aesthetics.
5. This is actually one of the reasons I moved off of a planet (besides the bugs). It's a pain in the butt to find your base. I used beacons instead of regular lights because they're brighter, but yeah it's still a pain.
6. Head to an asteroid belt. Check your map for yellow rings (check the wiki for an image). Also enable asteroid markers in your nav window. That way it'll show you waypoints for nearby asteroids. You can also check the nav window to find out what ores nearby asteroids contain.
7. Yes, per plate.
8. Yes but you only get scrap which is not as valuable as ore I don't think.
9. I don't think so.