Not sure if anyone still plays the game, but I found this pretty amusing. As usual I am not used to playing nice, so some observations on how to beat this game and have some fun. Running vanilla, simply because the modded often crashed my saves, so I gave up. Pretty though, but after I spent a few hours and got the save game broken, I gave up.
So what's the point? Let's assume you want to beat this game, that includes having the largest company, fulfill the story quest and have all that research and in the most easy way. First observation, which was painful for me, is that unsupervised fleets in sectors do nothing. Yes, even if you have 20 fully upgraded Leviathans in the Depths sector and you are in Forge hoping that Pirates with two lousy Ghosts will get their asses handed to them, you are wrong. Same goes for meteorite quests. So don't waste. Have a main fleet and some backup as a destroyed ship's replacement. Didn't spend any time looking into source code and I am not keen on modding, so all that goes just from playing the game. I am not saying that's the most optimal way, but easy to follow and without many hurdles. So spoilers ahead, you've been warned.

First what you need to invest is that initial 20 science points to autodocking. Call me lazy but once you do manual docking you might get what I am talking about (aside that once is enough for the achievement). Next thing you need is patience, yes there are lots of blank times that cannot be sped up, like autodocking to stations in the sector, the bigger ship the more time you need. The main objective for about a game year or two is to be a bottom feeder. That means the cash on your hands should be always under 100k. 60-70k is about right. As bottom feeder no one will be bothered with you and even pirates relationships will be hunky dory. If you wish, go for the tutorials, but I am skipping that. You have the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ship in the game and 5k credits and flying in some God forsaken place where there is nothing. Just go to the next sector, the Depths, press F9 and look for contracts. VIPs are good, ignore the lousy one for 3k, from my experience you can have only two passengers at once, but many contracts in tow. There is no time limit to fulfill them. Well there is, but that's related to the reputation of the other company (my guess). Always pick a contract for research points, you need them a lot. It is a tough decision what you should pick first when you have a chance in the science tab. Ice mines don't need fuel to operate and it seems like mining, especially Iron with all that demand for steel, is a way for steady cash flow, right? WRONG!!! You need a research station first. So go for science first. When you have about 20k then pick a shipyard and order that brick Omen. Pick the one which has resources and is not so busy, in the early stage this should not be a problem. Do some contracts and when you have that new nice brick setup first trade route. I am calling that Water triangle. The Depths buy Water, Lighthouse sell water, buy fuel and last one is Miners home where you have steady demand for fuel. This should generate about 500 credits per day. I buy another brick or two and get even more, right? Wrong again. The game economy is bit slow and you find out that after a few turns even one brick can spam Miners home with fuel so fast, that you need to search for another place to offload fuel (you will do that either way and two bricks on this trade route are reasonable maximum). Next when you have about 50k from contracts, that's really easy and fast, you need to build the station. Don't and again DON'T touch the steel at any cost for trading. Tools are fine, iron ore with some exceptions. Research is the one you need, the placement is the question and I like to keep things together, so I usually build this in Forge. There should be pretty much steel now and tools for cheap even later in the game. The plastic is cheap in the “main” sector so one long haul and few sectors delivery. Next thing you need is to fill up the station belly, haul HE3 and some cheap fuel there, tools you get from local trading. The initial 50-60k should be enough for this and the brick will put some cash to your pocket as well. Don't go broke, coz cash is used to buy stuff for your trading fleet, so check the trading cycle. In the travels you might find some “unknown signal” message, so be a good boy/girl and follow the signal for some warm fuzzy feeling and most important research points. When you have two technologies unlocked you can go for lvl3, so I am picking up the lvl1 logistics, because that is the cheapest and you will need that. Next goal is to unlock lvl5 for Advanced station. Don't bother with anything else now. And most importantly don't overdo contracts, you need to be that bottom feeder. The company value is calculated by ships, station and goods inside + cash on hands, therefore about 250k is the limit for now, don't worry it will get better. Pirates should be happy with you and give you some nice benefits like contracts for 7k+. Don't go for anything stupid like war now or perhaps meteor strikes, you will all that later. When you have logistics, science and auto-docking, the next step is mining. With this you are allowed to get that lvl5 technology. Save science points, you might even go for a science station upgrade or perhaps buy a second brick for the water, if you need to burn some cash, but it's a waste. You can easily make 1mil from contracts whilst trading gives you about 200k at max with the risk of spoiling the setup and game economy. So don't curse your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ship, now, it's nimble and that's good. The only way to speed up in game time is when you travel from sector to sector, so go for another haul now. Waste in game time not yours. When you have an advanced station, build one in the same sector as science. In my case The Forge. There should still be some steel around (you didn't touch that commodity, right?). Right now you might be observing that free steel is slowly disappearing whilst tool factories have plenty but not tradeable. Another point is that steel factories are running low on hydrogen, that's another good thing. So let them be in such misery. On the complex in the central slot build an iron mine, with that you could start offloading some stuff you need later. Steel, tools and plastics. That's your goal, with about 200-300 of each you can think about to build your first steel factory there. Hope you already unlocked this on the science tab. With that you have unlimited access to steel, don't forget uncheck trade checkmark. Tools and plastic are cheap around. You can “reallocate” the science station to your comlex as well (just scrap it and your complex will eat the resources), but you lose some money in the process. You are still a poor bottom feeder with only one station and few ships, right? That's perfect. Keep that good work for a while. So what's next? Save some cash, look for a less busy shipyard, there are three in the game, and order Themis hauler 6x1k cargo is perfect with the best built time. The build time is nice too. Now you need to trigger a war. On the second shipyard order some corvette, don't bother with light ships. Dragon/Kami depends on the cash you piled up. You still should be able to go for under 100k in hands and under 300k for your company. When you have your big hauler it is time to swap ships we are going big. The military ship will trigger some nice wars between companies, but you are still an unimportant bottom feeder, who everyone gives a damn. So assemble your first fleet with big cargo as a main vessel followed by that corvette. Now is the time to make some big money. With big cargo, you can do better contracts for more money. The goal is to have about 500k+. So start hauling H2, Water is cheap as well, fuel, but be careful with your trade route. With all that cash you are marked for pirates, so before that happens and we don't want this, go to the first shipyard and buy Anubis. Voila and we are back on the safe 200k level. There are three shipyards, so rinse and repeat, the goal is to block ship production and leave game AI do the logistic for resources. If you have more cash on your hands, order Phalanx too in each place. All the big ship builds will eat up all resources in the system and no one will get the chance to buy anything there. There is some priority queue, I guess, for resources, so after your big ship is built, order another, do upgrades afterwards the combination of flak cannon and the most expensive is a nice in 1+2 setup, whatever. Pirates might have combat power around 300 now, but that's fine, few corvettes and lots of small fries don't matter, the other companies should be about 200 at max, but most will be below 70, just one Anubis with flak will do. For your complex you should have one iron mine, steelworks, tool factory, plastic factory and most important a foundry. Disable trading on all of this, especially on electronics. You will need silica, there are two mines, pumps are giving steady outputs and only one option when you touch the steel is if you see some station in upgrade state and you need this resource, then help the poor. Save last central slot for shipyard. You need 1k of each commodity to build your own shipyard. But before that you need another source of income. Then build habitat on your complex. I choose the Forge sector, because there are people from the start, upgrade that to lvl3-4, perhaps more, and you see that people's purchases will give you about 1-2mil per year for the start. Just get some food, you have in house tools and electronics. Fuel should be there too. With that you are all set. Noone can build another ship, because you blocked all shipyards, with orders not by force :) and yours dont accept external orders, right? So put all that to good use and build some big fleets with capital ships. Within a year you should have about 700+ combat power and no one can say a thing. Just gather fleets and go to kick some pirate asses. You need to do that anyway for the story line. Fill your hauler with fleet supplies and put turrets on your flagship to auto. You need to kill all the combat ready pirate ships, so prepare for some hunting. Capture all pirate stations, don't worry about “combat lost '' in other sectors, the goal is to clean up the Boneyard, there is the main pirate force. Afterwards you should do some moping around and clean up the rest of the pirates' combat ships/stations. So now you are king of the hill with an Electronics monopoly, combat power greater than the sum of all other companies and pirates as bottom feeders and no one that could stop or challenge you. Enjoy.