Gameplay Information

As the game is early access it can be a bit confusing jumping straight in; here is information that I hope will help your gameplay.

Pilot and repair are the two most essential jobs.
You need someone to fly your ship and due to entropy and random events the ship is always falling apart.

Characters grow, increasing the effectiveness and number of their skills as well as their needs.
Details: Out of the 4 shift day you have to balance time to work and time to fill needs.

Each need requires a facility in your ship which takes an amount of space reducing the free space in your ship for cargo or passengers, all space tallies below will fulfill 4 people easily unless noted otherwise.

A lvl 1 character has very little in the way of needs and can work 3 of 4 shifts happily (toilet, bed, food, 4 ship spaces easily shared by 4 people)
lvl 2 adds an additional need (bathing) which takes 1 more space. Works 3 of 4 shifts happily
lvl 3 you get another skill and a need which takes 2 space in your ship but you can still get 3 shifts of work.
lvl 4 needs entertainment which could take 1-3 ship space, I found that 2 shifts off got their needs met.
lvl 5 needs 'socilization' I have no idea how this need increases or is met. I have never seen an issue, so for the moment ignore it and revel in the fact that you have a person who is a pro and has 3 skills !

How effective a character is at their jobs is hard to see anywhere but in piloting and hacking where numbers are provided;
lvl 1 or 2 in hacking delivers a -15% chance of contraband being detected (more numbers as I train the guy)

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note: it appears that you can only train hacking in combat... so you may have to buy a high skill one...

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Piloting has the greatest effect upon your game play. Each full star of piloting skill allows you to use 20% of your ships potential each working shift. This effects how long it takes to get places!
Two lvl 5 crew can pull out 100% of your ships potential and reduce travel times by up to 40% compared to one crew of lvl 2-3 working 2-3 shifts.

Each character has 2 basic stats: Strength and Stamina
I have no idea what Strength means or dose but it is clear that a low Stamina person cannot handle prolonged combat and will leave their post while a high stamina person will be there all day.

Enough about the people, on to the game.

In the trade screen you will see that each planet has some resources they produce and some they consume signified by a green arrow (produce) and red arrow (consume) you will start the game buying stuff where it is made and moving it to where it is consumed.

You say 'well duh, it is a trading game after all'? hah! the trick is that the production and consumption RATES are very hard to determine for any one planet, some will produce faster than you could possibly drain and others will produce maybe one thing in one hundred days!

My tip to all players is that when you visit a planet go to the market and take note of the items in demand and how much you could sell them before they are full; then in the future when you find a planet with a good in supply you will know how much to buy to fill the needs of the system and once you sell those remember to check how much more they could hold, if they are full cross them off the list until you notice a lack later on.

As such your trading options will quickly drain up and you will have to turn to missions, piracy, or research to get more money.

Missions-
Cargo transport- take 1-10 cargo from point A to B in X days. Speed is usually the challenge
Infinite demand- obtain from any market and deliver to location large timeframe. Very lucrative, challenge is finding the cargo
Passenger transport- take 1-10 people from point A to B in X days. Speed is key. remember that the passenger compartments take room on your ship and you may need to also install extra bathroom and food supplies.
Illegal transport- take 1-5 cargo or 1 person to location, large timeframe, lucrative. NOTE: every planet you land on will have a 50% chance to detect the illegal merchandise, so don't make un-necessary stops and get a hacker!
Bounty- Go to designated location from current location, along the way you will have a combat event. Lucrative but expensive entry cost.

Piracy-
There are other ships out there, click on them and intercept then beat them in a battle and you get to loot their cargo! (some of which may be illegal on certain planets)
I will point out that to take this path you need a large investment in weapons, ammo, and crew. Not for the faint of heart.

Research-
Through research you can access the outer planets of the system giving you more markets to do trade with and more ships to attack.