This game isn't hard, I don't understand why people have so much trouble with it.
>abuse the pause mechanic. pause when you need to think, pause when you need to move crew around, pause if you need to to time your weapons, pause to move power around, etc.
>think harder about your power management. you can get more useful systems online if you take power away from others when necessary, e.g. pausing then powering oxygen off to put another point into engines when the enemy is firing a missile
>get level 2 shields asap, missiles aside you will be pretty safe for the first sector or two with them
>maximize the amount of scrap you collect. take every fight you can. don't rush to the end of the sector, make every jump possible. once your ship is strong and fast enough to survive the enemy fleet you can even take an extra few jumps at the end
>minimize the amount of damage you take. consider targeting their weapons first if they have a missile or something else dangerous.
>volley your shots. don't set everything on auto, fire them together to maximize the number that get through shields.
>don't jump to shops until you have enough money to buy something useful. if you have time jump to everything else you can first
>don't be afraid to sell shit to get something more useful. later ships often come with near-useless augments that you can dump immediately for scrap
>lower-to-mid power weapons are usually better than powerful but slow weapons. a burst laser II (one of the best weapons in the game) can get two 3-shot volleys off in about the time it takes the burst III to fire one 5-shot volley, and costs half the power. fast weapons are important, you want to overwhelm the enemy before they get the chance to hurt you. keep playing more and you will learn what is always useful (burst laser II, flak I), what is situationally useful (powerful lasers and beams if you have a pre-ignitor), and what sucks (heavy ion, ion weapons in general if you don't have enough of them to overwhelm the enemy's shields)
>cloaking is always useful. hacking is almost always useful, unless you're really low on drones. drone control is less so but handy with defense drones
>long range scanners are useful, you can maximize the number of fights you get in and avoid hazards if you're weak
>learn the events (whether by wikiscumming or the hard way), those alien spiders are no joke. a variety of crew and systems are nice to have for the blue event options.
>work with the ship you picked. don't waste the money to switch from medbay to clonebay or vice versa. the kestrel A is a very strong ship, it's almost always a mistake to focus on boarding when you started with such strong weapons
>that said, learn to work with what you're given. if you're getting far and the game still hasn't given you an adequate weapon, maybe it would be smart to pick up teleporters and have something you can use
tl;dr get scrap, get strong, roll with the punches and the game is easy. People bitch and moan about RNG but outside of a few truly cursed runs you can salvage almost anything if you play smart.