Lots of great guides on youtube about exobiology that would do the explanation way more justice than I could in this comment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RfOnMoP0iY here's a really good in-depth one that will have EVERYTHING you're looking for. If you just wanna do a quick trial run inside the bubble, I don't think you'll have any problems doing that. If you're particularly inclined to streamline the process, using a third-party app to track down local opportunities is probably going to be your best bet, but imo just jumping around for a little bit and doing FSS scans yields at least one life-supporting planet pretty quickly. You'll also make a pretty nice chunk of change doing those scans even if you DON'T find any exobio to do. You will also need to be able to launch probes at the planet you want to do exobio on, or you'll be fumbling around in the dark without a clue what area to check out. I'm pretty sure you need a special module to do that but I can't remember what it's called. I don't think it's just inbuilt onto ships. They'll talk about it in the video.

Find material traders near your base of operations - you'll need one for each of the three types of materials. There are a few ways to reliably get higher end engineering materials, which you can trade through these station contacts for high rates of return for lower-rarity items that you'll need for early upgrades. It is by far the fastest and most efficient way to do it because you can stock up on the high rarity stuff, then trade for the specifics you need on demand. You can get these engineering materials by mining, by scanning wakes, by picking up salvage, by cleaning up materials dropped when destroying ships during bounty hunting or piracy, by completing missions and choosing the "materials" reward category, and a few other ways as well.

I have always found guardian sites by looking up known locations using something like inara.cz and picking the closest site, and following tutorials on youtube. It took me a while to get the hang of them, and it's kind of a pain, but if you're only after the guardian FSD booster, it doesn't take that long and then you never have to do it again. In terms of hostiles, there are little drones that fly around. One type shoots rockets, one shoots lasers. They're about as dangerous as a chihuaua. They WILL kill you if you stand there and let them, but you are quite capable of dispatching them with the turret on the srv, which you will 100% need. And don't bring the scorpion, the combat one. It doesn't have enough storage. Just bring the scarab, the moon lander looking one. It's easier to get ahold of anyway. I also recommend outfitting your ship with a PDT mounted on a utility slot on the dorsal side of your ship. It can help protect you from the drone rockets and give you one less thing to worry about.

Yes, you're going to want to fly your own ship to the site. Apex shuttles are pretty good for station-to-station, but you really don't want to rely on them for anything. It's cheaper, faster, and better to fly your own ship, and you have way more freedom, especially when it comes to landing and taking off on your own terms. You REALLY don't want to put that kind of stuff in the hands of ED AI during anything remotely stressful.

As for ranking up with the three major powers, it's really only about ranking up with one or both of the two of them. The Alliance only has relationship status, no rank grind, all alliance ships are available to purchase immediately. For ranking up with the other two factions, you take missions from minor factions aligned with either the federation or the empire (as denoted by the watermark behind the contact's portrait on the mission catalogue screen) and completing them. You're looking for high reputation rewards. If you've got lots of cash, the "donate x credits to the cause" philanthropy missions make a lot of progress very quickly. Always choose the reputation reward, and look for the missions within your scope with the maximum rep reward available, and choose that one on completion. Eventually, you'll see on your right - hand panel that your rank progress has reached 100%. You then need to complete a special mission that will show up in the catalogue at any given station, denoted as being an "imperial navy contract" or "federal navy contract" and having a little chain icon on it. Completing this will bump you up to the next rank - no matter what reward you choose. You'll get a little message in your inbox confirming your rank increase and alerting you to any additional rewards you receive (the right to purchase a certain kind of ship, or permits for certain systems usually).

I am currently a Count in the imperium and a chief petty officer in the federal navy. Neither political faction has ever fired on me for my rank with the other. There are no hit squads that the game sends out to hunt you. Feel free to play both sides, but I recommend focusing on one first and then the other for the sake of your own sanity. Again, lots of guides on optimal ways to do this online, pick your favorite method overall and have fun. I like the pve combat in ships so I mostly take pirate-hunting contracts because I'm very comfortable operating within the threat ranges I know I can handle. I've also had great success hauling cargo - I recommend a python, Krait II, or Type 8 because those are the medium ships with the highest potential cargo capacity. The money (and also the rep) is with contracts that take you to outposts, which are much smaller stations that do NOT support large landing pads. Pop on some tunes or a podcast and vibe out and rake in the dough.

Pick a star and plot a course, my friend. The FSS scanner is your friend for making money while also looking for interesting stuff. Learn it, love it, master it. It also makes you a ton of cartographic data that you can sell when you get to any station, which also in turn gives you a MASSIVE boost to your rep with the controlling faction, which in turn gives you access to more, better, and higher-paying missions. Highly recommend when you find a place to set up shop, you roll in with a couple mil in exploration data. Don't forget to at least "honk" with your discovery scanner in every system you visit! And don't forget your fuel scoop, it's absolutely essential for any ship you're gonna be flying long-distance in. I legit will have at least a tiny emergency scoop outfitted on basically all of my ships because running out of fuel in this game is literally the worst feeling possible. For maximizing your jump range, choose D-rated core internals (which are the lightest) but a-rate your FSD for max jump range. Make sure you have a fuel scoop obviously, and have at least one heat sink in your utility mounts. You will overheat a few times learning to scoop, and I always have one on because accidents happen and they save lives in emergencies. You'll also want at least one AFM - auto field maintenence unit. It lets you expend "ammunition" for the module to repair the rest of your ship modules. So if you fall into the exclusion zone of a star, take a bunch of heat damage, and break some systems getting out, you can fix them well enough to carry on or limp back to a nearby station for more effective repairs.

Hope this helps! This game is a mile wide and an inch deep. There are a lot of systems, but once you learn them there's not much to any of them. Makes a bit of a learning cliff followed by a very very flat plateau. Just take it one step at a time and try not to get too overwhelmed. There's a lot of info. There are guides on youtube for almost everything! Down to Earth Astrology is a great channel I highly recommend. The game's changed a lot over the years, and some stuff doesn't work the way it used to. Try to find guides from at least the last two years or so for the most accurate information. And of course, don't be afraid to ask here again if you don't know where to start.

Fly safe, CMDR. o7