Welcome John! I’m glad you’re having fun w/ the game! I think the hand written notes are half the fun of the game! I usually have one big piece of printer paper that I just write my stuff down on, and sort of draw little boxes around to separate.
You are right, starting w/o reading the manual is tough! As far as starting off and getting money for fuel, there is a planet in the space station’s home system which has fuel deposits on it. I spend my first hour or so mining the planet, and gathering fuel. This gave me enough money to max out my crews respective stats, and I had something like ~40 units of fuel before even leaving the home system.
The system right next to the home system also has a great planet to mine on. I mined it for an hour or so last night and came away w/ about 150k space bucks. Enough to go buy Engines level 4, and then I maxed out every single one of my captains stats. I’m not sure if it helps, but it feels good to me. 🙂
So then you’re starting your real space travel w/ ~40 units of fuel, and really efficient engines.
