As others have said, get the 2.002 patch which will give you the extra missions, fix many performance issues, and let you play with the M7 class hyperion
As for making money: The one thing you should bear in mind is that you should never have money sitting in your account. Whilever you're spending everything you own, your capacity to generate funds will be growing exponentially.
The other thing to remember is that the big bucks are in combat. Capturing and selling ships, and getting weapons. You need a trade fleet and stations to get you cash in the background, but combat will get you the big cash injections you will need to build these things quickly without sitting around twiddling your thumbs or using SETA.
If I were to start the game again my strategy would be this:
Start the game with plot enabled (for rank boosts etc)
Go get the starburst (sitting waiting 50Km directly up from the north gate of Freedom's reach), ditch the Buster and save the cash for now
Go find the two (or more?) 'free' TS ships that are sitting around reasonably close to argon space
Go down to the sector 2 south of Maelstroem, and get the Nova that's sitting there. Use the cash from the Buster to buy HEPTs and 25MW shields
Go kill pirates. Capture falcons (easy enough and ~500K per capture depending on the condition) and buy trade mk3 siftware for the TSs and more shields / weapons for the nova. Start your trade mk3 TSs up as sector traders, then switch them to universe trader when they get to level 8.
Do the plot missions, fairly quickly. You should have enough money from the UTs to cover any required expenses in the plot line
When you're done and the paranid are friends with you again, you should have sufficient race rank to do the bala gi missions
Do the bala gi, and get the Hyperion. Kit it out with PSGs and *go kill some xenon* The drops of gamma PPCs and beta flaks will net you up to 50M per sector you clear, and will give you a good reason to get good with handling a larger ship.
Spend the money you make on more UTs, and factories. I agree that spacefuel and spaceweed are the best startup facs, but once you have more money find the good silicon rocks and churn out quantum tubes, microchips and computer components. Also whatever weapons and shields are needed locally.
I'd continue like this until you have around 30 UTs and 7 or 8 XL factory complexes. By then you will have a massive earning power, and can simply sit back and watch your cash grow in time for the auction. Shouldn't take more than a day - less if you go scavenging for xenon weapon drops to top it off. When the auction is done, you will have a great base to build up a massive fleet and do whatever you want to.
Oh, and regularly jump round all the sectors that border xenon space (except nopilios' memorial) to check for xenon invasions. And never pass up an assasination mission.
Formula for victory right there
