Some tips for easier access to content:
1. Max level is 100, thus you have 495 points to spend.
2. Best ship available at 460 points. It gives +99 tactics.
Should you pursue it or choose bonuses+less slots? Personally, I found that late-game items far surpass those bonuses (250 base stats into mechanic give equivalent of one level 50 armor regen item, but could unlock 9 slots instead).
It is possible to get one bonus, though - at least one subrace gives +10 base bonus (I have found AI), so you can spend 460 into ships, and 35+15 into computers for doubled shield regen bonus (still equal to low level shield booster, though)
Overall, I found that scavenger ship has the best additional slots - You would need thruster with so heavy ship, and Scavenge module gives armor repair, which is good addition to repair back occasional leaks through shield with nice bonuses to quality and quantity of drop.
(Shield tank is better than Armor tank - when first is being penetrated, you start to lose armor. When asrmortank is penetrated, you lose health of modules)

Fastest way to unlock AI ship - starting second challenge (you need to complete first, which is 6-level hard)

Getting levels fast for non-hc:
Start small/med established sector with 11 races at max available level (24 for new ship)
Prepare to die a lot. Fly, explore, trade planetary goods.
And regularly check diplomacy for contacts to new factions - buy them asap.
After 10 minutes into the game bosses would start to die. Gather credits for killing them. I once got 5 level ups for quest "destroy planet" which I haven't seen.
Now, you have high level ship without items - getting them in 2 steps:
1. Start very low level game, fill all slots with desired item types
2. Start normal game, search for Scavenger race. They have option "Scavenge" on trade screen. You choose item, click on it - and in trade screen appears same item type of the level which you can use. Very useful. For example, at ship level ~47 you can get largest bay.

Thanks for the tips! I hadn't paid attention to the race-unique trading options; some cool stuff, there. I used all my money reassigning points and scavenging gear. :)

I tried to scavenge a bay, though; that didn't work for me.

Scavenging sometimes fails without spending money, use again. Bays were the hardest for me, 5-6 in a row.

An easy way to level is go to the highest level system you can go to at the time. If you get lucky and can get a chain of the help planet missions you can gain 10 levels or more in a relatively short time. Just turn in all quests possible don't worry about rep or anything and when finished or overwhelmed by monsters reroll a new system. Cloaking or higher level fighters can help a lot with this.

Something else I've discovered: it seems that gear requirements are only for installation, not operation. That means you can load up crew and environment systems, install gear, and then replace the crew with more gear that doesn't have as high installation requirements. (Just because the installed gear has a red X on it doesn't mean it isn't being used.)

That's probably unbalancing, but it makes a certain sense (installation is more demanding than operation), and it does have a cost: lower energy regen, lower hit points, lower attack, no leveling up for crew, a click-intensive process every time you want to upgrade gear, etc.

I'm guessing that will disappear in a future release (unless it was intentional). For the time being, though, you can really buff out a ship that way. :)

I haven't played this for a long time but it worked on everything except the weapons, unless that got changed more recently.

No change there; still doesn't work on weapons. :)

I did go to the game forums, and evidently the difference between installation and operation is by design.