I know it's a bit late for this, but I found the aforementioned trick also worked on the public test. Managed to nab all the 69 new prefabs (yes, that's the actual number, there's 275 normally and 344 in the test), including all the economy stations and the purchasable ships.

Here's something interesting I found: You know the mod Midspace's Admin Helper? It's the best thing for cataloging prefabs. The command /listprefabs gives you a numbered list of ships with their internal names. Then you can spawn any of them using /addprefab followed by either the *exact* name of the grid (yes, case sensitive) or by typing in #(number of the grid in the list). I've found that many encounters actually have two versions, "A" and "B," with one having a warhead in it and the other not. Hope this helps!

i don't have the DLC either, and i managed to find a 2nd one several minutes later.

I'll eventually get the DLC to save it.

So far I have managed to fully repair 3 of these pods.
I don't actually have the DLC yet, so nicking any missing blocks from other exploration finds.
Most of the pods are missing the toilet block, and it takes time to find and recover more space junk.

The funny part is i found these life pods shortly before seeing this...
I managed to chop the intact pod for private use, but it got pummeled by enemy drone fragments.
The game also saved just 2 seconds before impact so there was no saving them.

Rip