After many failures, freak-outs and much angry shouting I have finally completed the "Good luck" (what a great name for the mission, for all the wrong reasons). It didn't bring me happiness or satisfaction, but it did give me some relative peace.

Thank you, kind sir. I also didn't actually kill the Lucifer, it was my allied ships that destroyed the damned fifth inexplicably fortified against Harbringer bombs reactor after I died. However the Lucifer died before the game over screen came up and the game proceeded to the final cutscene. So that means I died a hero's death.

Overall Freespace 1 is definetly great and I'll continue on the expansion and the sequel. My only gripe with the game is that sometimes I feel like I get shot and killed from nowhere. I'd like a button for targeting the last ship that shot me as an option if that isn't already.

If you have a hard time surviving maybe you're too aggressive, break off the attack and be evasive for a while.
Also you're not alone, have a wingman covering your back, or do the opposite, babysit your wingman as he attacks while you try to defend.

I can't speak for FS1 but 'r' is the default keybind for targeting the ship attacking you in FS2.

I'd advise against that. Silent Threat is pretty bad. I suggest going straight to FS2. Specifically, FS2 Open. The community has even created a new installer/launcher that makes it very easy to install both FS2 Open itself as well as a bunch of good mods: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94068.0 As plieblang said, pressing "R" will target the closest thing attacking you. In fact, one of the best features of the Freespace games is that they have pretty much every targeting function you could ever think of.

There's Silent Threat Reborn that's quite good and has "retail compatibility" in case he wants to play it without graphical enhancements.

I can tell you something simple about Freespace 2..

You have to use easy difficulty, that's it.

Put the difficulty up, YOUR DEAD, no iffs buts or mebes, YOUR DEAD, the end.

A game where you can increase the difficulty and still play is X2 and X3 Reunion and the rest of that series