New Player? FAQ, How To and "should have known earlier"

I try to keep this guide as short and un-wordy as possible, so I won't tell you every single detail. You may have to click a bit yourself through the submenus, the menus are labyrinths ;)

I may add stuff in the next days. Still have to find my way myself both in the game and how to make a guide;)

Where here is will be depending on your start. It also defines which ship you have. I used the first start.

Do NOT go into a different ship! Many unsuspecting new captains have been kidnapped by indifferent NPC pilots.

F5 is quicksafe. You can manually save in different slots. You may want to use that. So far the game is less buggy than many people thougt, but you never know.

To learn what to do, press H for the tutorials. You may not be able to do some of them right now, but you can always stop and restart them. Their instructions are only shown on-screen, and not in the log (really Egosoft??)

One of the first things you should do it to hire a captain. Just in case you get kidnapped even after my warning, a captain allows your ship(s) to be commandered using the map.

To hire a captain, you have a tutorial. In short, talk to any running-around NPC and hire them. Right click on the ship you want to have them assigned to (must be on same station). Click again to accept your selection (Egosoft!) and then on the right side select the role -> captain.
Congratz! You have a captain for your ship.

To fire personal you have to go to your ship's details and right click -> comms. (Or talk of you stand in front of the NPC).

The guys running around on a station are as noobish as you are, possibly because they are the unemployed. But even a 0 star pilot can steer. Often in a station. In that case - if you ship is stuck - don't try to fly manually, let your captain do it. He can fly out nealy as easily as in something.

(edit: according to patch notes 1.3, you can no longer recruit from capital ships) You can find better (and more expensive) crews by docking on capital ships. You can't see what you get though.
New ships get (often with some stars) crews from the shipdock.

Many find this hard. You have to align the horizontal and vertical markers to match the docking place. With a bit of trainig that works quite easily (you may have to turn around sometimes). A docking computer makes that easier, the MK II solves that completly alone.
On equipment stations (and wharfs and shipdocks too) you can repair and upgrade your ship using the ship menu after landing. There you also buy consumables like satellites or missiles.

Stations don't buy or sell (nearly) unlimited stuff. Instead they offer trades - a certain amount to a certain price. Keep that in mind when getting your first big trade ship!

Also there are different types of cargo hold.

If you do the trade tutorial you will learn how to order your ships to trade manually.
You can assign autotrade by right clicking in the map and choose the option. Make sure your cargo hold is empty! Autotraders do not sell stuff already in cargo hold. No room, no trade.
You can also go to behavior and set the standard behavior to autotrade with more options, but that needs a 3 star pilot.

"credits due from trade" are those that you get after a planned trade is finished.

Keep that switch for trade offers in mind!

If you hover a (colorcoded) text ion the trade screen, you can see the % under or above average price!

To mine esteroids can be quite profitable. To mine you need a ship with a mining laser. To see what an asteroid yields (if any) click on it. You may(?) need to make a range scan first.

To automine you need to set the standard behavior to automine, this requires a 1 star pilot (which you shoudl have for bought ships).
I think you can assign them to one of your stations (after you get one of course) later, to get resources.

X games are big. X4 is relativly small, but since two more races are planned in DLCs, it should get quite some sectors more.

The shift+1 and shift+3 modes are your friends! 3 scans (hold R two seconds) for stations and other big objects, 1 lets you fly faster.

Backspace is your friend! The complete stop brakes you way faster then just switching off travel mode. Also a must-use in the spacesuit!

Your spacesuit is very useful!
You can go out of your ship in a spacesuit by using the teleporter console of your ship when in space. Unfortunately that does not work on staions. Why unfortunately?
Your suit is equipped with a repair laser, that makes repairs possible. After you buy a hand laser, you need to reassign the repair laser to a fire group.

Also, to capture a ship (where the pilot has left in a fight), you have to get out, make a scan of the ship and decipher a signal. Then you can shift+d enter the ship. You need a captain on your old ship or it will be helpless!

In a space suit Tab-key is your very best friend, followed by backspace. In a ship it's the other way round ;)

You can scan stations and find signals to get discounts or smuggling missions. At 100% dataleaks may give you blueprints so you can use that part for building your own station. (Factions representatives sell them too - need 10 points reputation.)

Why you never reach 100? The ships scanners are not good enough. Just scan in spacesuit, no sense for ship if you aim for 100%.

Color code is type - storage, production etc.

If you go to map and click on the + of the station in the list, you can go down until you come to the parts. Unscanned are shown as ???

I think it is best if I just point you to this video by Noodle & Twinkky

Just one point to that: You can no longer teleport to any friendly station, Egosoft has out-patched that.

Main points

In map mode, left side Manage Plots, don't forget to pay for them. Important: Out of Sector any ship will first go to the "center" of the station, which is afaik the point you clicked on the map, and then to a dock.
So use the sliders only for 2 directions, e.g. right and up, and place the docks in the lower left. (You can also move your station (parts) later on, but that takes a builder and time again.
Turrets and shields are placed by right click on the module and change loadout (connection modules and docks don't have loadouts).

Backspace is your friend! Fast brake for ships and spacesuit!

Stuck in an asteroid or station? Let your captain pilot you out of it!

Grafics fps low? Only use FXAA Antialiasing.

Need money? (EDIT: Seems like they kicked out the sedatives from traders in 1.2.1, so this "cheat" won't work anymore) Go to a station's trader (a building somewhere on the side, see crafting tutorial).
Buy bandages, needles and sedatives. Use them to make Medkits. Buying price per Kit: 1K, sell price per kit: 10K. If a trader has all three, that is 100K fast profit. It's nearly cheating!

Different races, different upgrades! Each race has ship equipement that is stronger than that of the other races. It might pay off to shop around. Teladi have the best shields for example.

Which Weapon? I will just point you to this post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/0/1744479698792535867/

To get your Player-HQ, start the scanning tutorial. Find the signal (fly like you want to put it on your window) and follow the instructions of the lunatic Boron.

Be careful to put the antimatter on the right ship. It will be destroyed.
Get your main ship to follow you. Fly the antimatter ship to the coordinates. Get out of the antimatter ship and into your main ship. Fly away to the coordinates given to you by guide. Then watch the show.