Dah. My Type A Kestrel, the "No Illusions", died before the end of sector 2.
Massive streak of bad fortune - every beacon except one was either:
1) a nebula with an ion storm (which, given I hadn't upgraded yet, meant I had enough power to run two of: my shields, my weapon, or my O2 unit - lots of clicking and switching between them!)
1 2) an asteroid belt (not too bad, except that with a single shield and no missile/roid defences the enemy kept hitting me with damn beam weapons)
...or...
3) that GOD DAMN SUN. Seriously, I managed to kill the enemy ship without a single issue (as they caught on fire and burned to death), but then spent a whole ten minutes with my three crew trying to put out fires (in the few compartments that I hadn't vented), fix/charge up the engine and fix/navigate from the cockpit. And every solar flare seemed to hit the doors compartment simultaneously with either the engines or the cockpit, so before I could even re-oxygenate them I had to repair the doors...by which time another $%&£ flare hit!
...seriously, this game is awesome. Yes, the RNG sometimes screws you over, but it feels like the universe itself is toying with you, not the game - after scraping through all those systems I genuinely felt like my poor three crewmembers were the battered and soul-destroyed saviours of the galaxy, fighting for their lives.
They failed, but they
fought, dammit!
Also, I managed to get the Crew Teleporter, Drone Control (offensive only, with no drone parts to spare, sadly) and a Breach Bomb II within the first sector. Damn, I thought I was onto a good run there. Sigh.
Right.
Donut Torus time!
1 Actually, I loved this. I was imagining the crew frantically watching the oxygen gauge drop lower and lower while they worked as fast as they could to get the gorram missile launcher up and running, then switching the power straight back to the O2 unit as soon as it was launched, to literally catch their breaths.