LOL. Life´s a bitch!
You need to get blueprints before you can start manufacuring.
You can only manufacture the things you got blueprints for, blueprints can be found in the trade section at your base.
But, when you start there is not much in the tradesection, you need to make a few friends who will trade with you first. That is dome by taking on the missions. Your trade list will grow as you do the missions. And you will be awarded with upgrades too.
Ships can not be bought, you'll have to do with your tugboat til the middle of act 2, then you will be given an advanced Patcom. A very nice ship. But the tug isnt that bad at all. After a while when you have added a few fancy upgrades, like better shields, engins, guns and most important, the tiefighters, it will become quite destructive.
However if you are not into playing the missions, only want to play pirate for a while, there are external mods (can be found in the download section of this site) that will allow you fly other ships and use better weapons. I can recommend the Drakh Crusier, with that baby you dont have to worry about any enemys, just go in and take what want from whereever you want. But then it isn't much of a game anymore, is it? One mod I can highly recommend is the location finder, it will be of great help when doing the missions. That worthless navmap almost drow me crazy as I spent houres zooming in and out on planets to find out where to go.
Have fun!
