Things this noob has learned so far.

Some of this is related to questions I raised in my earlier post, but it's slightly broader than that so I thought I would make another one. As before, I'm likely missunderstanding a lot of this, if only because there is a LOT to misunderstand.

Rep matters. If you get bad rep with one faction you can find yourself unable to progress some missions, including story ones. If you get bad rep with multiple factions you can find yourself unable to get fuel a long way away from anywhere, then your crew morale will tank and everyone will desert the moment you arrive in port. (Yes, I just found this out through accidental testing. *sigh*.) It's easy to end up doing a bunch of missions for your starting contacts, all of who are the same faction so the rep rewards are all in one place but the penalties are distributed throughout the entire galaxy among people who never liked you much to start with. So it's probably worth grabbing a few Talents to shuffle Patrol and Spy decks when you get chance. I'm also considering starting as Cadar so when the first story sets me in conflict against them I have Rep to lose.

Save. Save when you arrive in orbit, save when you leave a system, save when you start/progress a story Mission. Save before refitting your ship. This is a computer game - 'I ducked that up, best reload and try and get it right' is how they work. Especially games where failure is sometimes mandatory, which, well, this seems to be. We don't have auto/quick save functions, so you have to do it yourself. Sometimes RNG or whatever doesn't like you and you can spend months Spying or Exploring for a mission or everyone gets injured and the ship junked or...well, bad days happen. It's worth trying to be a little careful to stop them spoiling day/weeks of progress & play.

If you don't like learning/the wiki/etc, this may not be the game for you. This is my biggest 'complaint' about it I think, but presumably also why I'm here still trying to get my head around how it all works and how to be better next time. The gameplay is simple - Click on Planet, get Mission, fly to mission, click on 'explore' until you find them, click on everyone's single action in a turn as they line up neatly in a fight, etc. The mechanics behind that gameplay are incredibly complex and if you don't try and work them out then they will bite you in the bum. This is about to by my 3rd playthrough because I lost track of my Rep in different ways both previous times. I still don't really understand how Trade works (other than 'badly') or how to use Intel to mitigate my Rep issues, or how to manage healing/repairs without bleeding time, or etc, or etc.

Run Away. Unless you are able to win soundly, a Ship Combat is likely to leave you with enough injured crew and ship repairs that it will be a month in the next port - often for seemingly minimal reward. Otoh, letting them board you and seize the illegal cargo you don't have so they won't take or just dropping straight into combat and then out again lets you get on with your life mostly unhindered. Maybe after using some Repair or healing talents. I guess it may even be worth fighting friendlies sometimes just to get repairs & heals off before you then run away.

Boarding. Once you have closed the distance (or with Talents) you can board them in Ship Combat without needing talents to do so, and each time you do you get to demoralise their crew which is a significant debuff. Add in that later rounds you will just be facing ship Crew rather than their boarding party, and you can stack that debuff a few times and this seems like a reasonable way of winning Ship Combat without outfitting your ship without range optimised weapons etc. It does leave you with quite a small conscription pool at the the end of the process however, and still needs you to have the Skills/Traits/etc to reliably close and board without getting blown to heck first.

Crew Recruiting. From the earlier discussion & a bit more learning, I think my conclusion here is that the important thing in your crew is generally Level. Levels are what gives them Talents and relevant Skill pools. Anyone going into Crew Combat wants a solid stat block and a high initiative, but anyone else will use a couple of their stats sometimes for some of their talents so it's not worth worrying about too much. Crew don't actually get to use their non-job skills so they don't matter at all. Most traits are also borderline irrelevant - a few stat points or a combat effect make no difference to most crew. Anyone with +10% loots or morale boosts is probably worth trying to keep tho, and anyone with morale problems should be first in line when you need an extra empty bunk (but no point firing them until you do.) The stats of the planet you are recruiting at also matters apparently (I don't know how much). I'm thinking that the right way to recruit people is to headhunt through Contacts if possible, but otherwise just work with who you have.

Crew Roles. Spy - the kings of Intel. Intel=Rep, Rep=Contacts. Diplomat - Mission masters, and you are probably going to be doing a lot of those. Military Officer - Patrol daddys. And, well, you can do that every time you stop for gas. Pirate - Blockade Runner. What spies are to spying & Military Officers are to to Patroling, Pirates are to Blockade. Pilots/Navigators - Both of these have Talents that reduce landing times or fuel use when jumping. Both of which are something you are likely to be doing a lot of, often in quick succession, so it feels worth having multiple crew members with these Talents.

So, err, yeah. That's about where I'm at so far before trying again...One of these days I'll be able to afford a replacement for my trusty little Juror!