FTL is a hard game, but very fun and rewarding. Since I've had the benefit of playing it for a few weeks now, I thought I'd offer some help and advice for starting out.

First thing you want to do when starting the game is re-arrange your crew. They start out bunched together and not manning their stations. Four of the ships systems, navigation, engines, shields, and weapons, perform better when manned, and your crew can eventually gain skill in doing a particular station, making that system even better when manned by that crew member. As a result, you want to immediately take two of your dudes and put them in two of the three other systems. Which ones are up to you. You have to man navigation since you can neither jump to other star systems or dodge enemy attacks unless you do, but the other three you can pick.

When you pick up more crew, you'll want to man the other station, then spread your crew out and use them to help deal with emergences on the ship. Rocks are best for fires, Engi for repairs, and Mantises for combat, but the other races can help with whatever as needed.

Ship upgrades are also a matter of taste, but also depend on how far along you are and what equipment you have picked up. You should only upgrade weapons if you need the power for additional weapons you have picked up, or want to be able to take damage to your weapon systems without losing your weapons. Upgraded shields are pretty much required to survive past a certain point, but don't need investing in right away. Subsystems, like doors and sensors, are useful and don't require additional power, making them far cheaper to upgrade then primary systems. Also, don't think you have to power everything at once. At the beginning, for example, it's okay to depower your medbay when you aren't using it.

Thanks! I kept looking for the manual when the tutorial didn't describe as much as I'd hoped.
Sounds like great starting advice.

I have one question, though. Is this game entirely played in real-time? Because when I started a game I see no indication of time "passing" anywhere on the screen. So I'm confused whether anything is "happening" while I'm just sitting at a planet. Should I be "hurrying" to move onto the next system? Or is it safe to sit at a location for awhile? What about when you look at your Ship upgrades screen? is time passing then?

It's kinda a hybrid turn based real time system.

How you should look at it is that each planetary visit takes up turn. While at a planet, the rebel pursuit doesn't change, nor does anything else outside of your current location. Inside your location, things progress in real time, but no matter how long you sit there, time outside of that location will not pass until you jump to a new location.

Does that help?

The most important tip for me was that you should take time exploring. There is no benefit in rushing. Visit as many sectors as possible, but stay clear of the rebel fleet.

^Definitely this. It's easy to feel like you should speed along, but it'll leave you woefully underpowered later on.

Keep an eye on your fuel though. Don't go exploring too much if you're low on fuel, I found myself stranded a couple of times because of that. 3 or 4 units are not always enough to find a shop, or an encounter provinding enough fuel. Explore when you have some margin.

Other bad idea : don't send your crew to board automated ships. Not much oxygen in there. Send drones in you wish, but don't forget that you left the base without any spacesuit aboard.

Also, untarget the enemy with your cutting laser after each shot. These lasers take a while to relead, don't waste their shots. Wait for your other (probably autofiring) weaponery to bring its shield down, pause, and then trace a nice line (touching as many rooms as you can), and unpause. And then, while your laser reloads, don't forget to select it to cancel its automated fire. Wait again until your other weapons hit, re-pause, re-target manually, etc...

And don't forget that all weapons don't hit simultaneously, even if they have the samre cooldown time and start simultaneously. The first weapon on your row hits first. This means : don't have it target the system you want to disable the most. This is the job of the second or third weapon, your first weapon with just clear the shields for it. Don't give "secondary" targets to your second or third weapon.

Very interesting weapons advice.

As for fuel, I don't have a problem with fuel. All you have to do is buy all avaiable fuel every single chance you get until you have at least 20. The only times I have come in any dangers of running out is when I simply did not buy more fuel even when I had the chance.

Is anyone else getting the crap kicked out of them in this game? Even on easy? Some of the strategies I've seen here are some really nice pearls of wisdom though, so I'll be sure to give them a shot for my next playthrough. Up until now I've just been trying to knock out their weapons ASAP.

Yes, everyone. It's the point of the game, really.

You do start surviving long on average before dying spectacularly as you get more used to it, however.

Also, "Easy" isn't really easy. The difficulties should be called "hard" and "masochistic" instead.

I have to say that i disagree about the shields comment.

I find that getting an extra shield ASAP makes the game FAR More survivable through the first few sectors, meaning i spend less on repairs and have more scrap to devote to upgrades.

I also tend to try to go with an all energy layout for most of the game, i like a burst gun (the 3 shot ones are a nice balance of energy and firepower) with a pair of heavy lazers mk1's. I use the burst to drop the shields, then hammer them with the heavies. I do try to pick up a heavy missile weapon later in the game (or if i get one early just leave it unpowered or in storage)

Oh I agree with how helpful shields are, I just don't think you should drop everything and rush for them right away if their are other things you need first.. As I said, they are pretty much required to even survive past a certain point.