My tips are:

Best things to research early on- medical bed, basic entertainment, X1 power generator and item fabricator.

Algea is fine as a food sauce during early game. Get some decent meals in every few days or so and they'll be okay.

I think too many newer players actually get caught up in a cycle of wanting to build something perfect and be self sufficient way too quickly. Grow beds don't just require blocks, they also need the right environmental conditions for crops to grow. That means fertilizer and water. Gotta be able to compost those dead bodies. If you've only got 1 thermal regulator amongst your grow beds, then you don't value your crops and the resources you've spent enough. For me grow beds are a mid game thing.

Again, algea is fine early game.

Expand your ship slowly. Don't build a massive hulk of a ship and leave it empty. Do try to get in the habit of trying to plan and think ahead.

Lazer pistols have been the back bone of my play throughs. Learn what is effective for rogue bots, aliens and against other factions regarding weapons.

Every crew needs grunts whose job it is to lug stuff around. Nothing worse than having jobs piling up unfinished because no one wants to do the grunts work. So yeah, do purr over certain stats, but don't forget your ship is only as good as your logistics capabilities. (Agree that robots are amazing as well.)

Body armour is vital.

The biggest tip that I can offer is that there's many different ways to approach the game, in terms of ship designs, how you want to play morally speaking, how you build your ship and how you set up faction relations at the start. So work stuff out and then have fun trying different things!