Ok, sorry to bring this back, but I've been playing for a couple weeks now and I must say this is one of the most entertaining and addictive games I've played in a long time.
It's a very simple game, and the learning curve is steep for about the first couple days, then it all makes sense and you know what you want to do.
There's some things you simply have to go and find a guide for, like building colonies and such. Also, you'll want to pull up blackhole maps so you can get around the galaxy more efficient, but that's about all you need in order to really enjoy the game.
Over the last few days I've taken it upon myself to start policing the galaxy, and I had my butt handed to me by this pirate dude with what seemed like unlimited nukes. He blew me up within a few seconds, and I barely scratched him.
Needless to say I swore at the screen, lost a few hours worth of work (since my ship was lost), and had to high tail it back to base to get a new ship.
Oh but I'll have my revenge one day, once my colony starts producing nukes
The one thing I can advise a new player is, when you start out, trade between star ports until you can afford the whale ship. Keep upgrading until you've bought yourself the gravity gun and battle scanners and an extra million or two set aside in the bank should you get blown up. The other type of scanners in the game I've found aren't nearly as useful as battle scanners, no matter what you deal in. Once you have a high class weapon and the battle scanners, you've got enough invested that you can do whatever you really want in the game, and you can trade your ship in for whatever you want. You get to keep your weapon and scanners when you trade in a ship.
Hurray for teh logd!