I research everything. You get much more resources from finishing the research than scrapping them, just takes time.
You can’t actually shoot other players ships, HS is entirely cooperative, even when running stars with players not in your corporation. Move any damaged ships to a planet you’ve colonized and it’ll repair over time.
So far I haven’t found a way to automate shipments, but maybe someone who’s progressed further could comment if I’m wrong. The hydrogen miners can queue up more asteroids to automatically harvest as you level them up though.
Stately Star should end up in the top 100 corps soon, I think we’re only a hundred or so influence points away now. I’ll drop a message in the general chat so you can click on me and request to join.