A few things I have learned...
1. Radar: You can cycle through various radar ranges, do so. If you reduce your Radar range to below "system" you will appear in your radar screen as an arrow, the tip of the arrow is the direction you are heading. allies will appear as blue arrows, with the tip of the arrow pointing to the direction they are heading. Enemies appear as a red arrow.
2. Radar on the System Map. If you reduce your radar range to below "system" and then press "C" the screen will jump to the "system map" in close range. You will appear as an arrow with the tip of the arrow pointing to the direction you are heading. This is a good way to figure out which direction you need to go through the system, or where you are heading in the system. Click on the button at the bottom of the "system map" that will label the colonies. Colonies are the only places you can go with ports.
3. Enemies: Look at their stats, find where they are weakest in shields or armor (once you target them). aim there, and/or concentrate all your fire on one portion of the hull. Toxic injectors are a great weapon becuase they destroy the crews only, which can end up leaving more cargo to pick up after the ship is destroyed.
4. You can click on cargo pods before you pick them up to see what is in them. You don't have to pick them up first. Cargo pods also appear as very small brown dots on the radar screen.
5. If you just want a bloodbath, and a big ship, and lots of money (basically just to fly around and be a bad ***) you need to go into ShipplayerPurchase.txt or something in the campaign folder. Find the terran ship of choice you want, reduce the price of buying (but not selling!) to 100 (instead of 15000000 or whatever) and change the hull capacity from 700 to 7000. Now you can outfit your ship with anything and everything. Set the game to Hard or Expert. You can even improve the regeneration rates on the ship.
6. Power requirements: Your shields, engines, etc all use power, the amount used is displayed on the Inventory page (or space dock)- you need to have enough power produced as consumed (a little extra helps). If you don't have enough, when you get in a fight, your weapons will run out of energy quickly (so instead of waiting to reload, you will have to wait until you have power). Lack of power might also lead to shield failure...
7. Shields and armor: I missed this at first, but armor and shield strength (totals) are listed on the inventory screen (upper right side near power output) (or space dock) and will tell you what your total strength, and on which side, your armor and shield is.
8. Point Defnese: Get as many of these as you can find! They automatically shoot at fighters, and sats, and will protect you from those pesky torps! Try for at least two minimum.
9. Crew: More crew quarters and life support modules= more crew that can be eaten up in battle, or can work faster to repair your ship (in emergencies)
10. Sensors: Install sensors as soon as possible, they improve your ability to spot the red dots on the system radar range further out. You have to get closer to nebulei? to see if any ships are there since those things cloak ships.
This game is fun. Buy it... NOW.
Happy hunting.