You're first question, if I understand you correctly, you can change your name here on the forum and it will have no effect on your launcher account name.
Secondly, once you're in game, type /help and it will show you a list of common commands.
you can find a list of most of the server commands here
As far as the restarts go, in game type /showrestarts, and it will give you a list of all of the ones currently available.
To lower your rep with the faction that are currently friendlier than you would like, type /droprep. I haven't used that one in awhile, but I think it costs 1 or 2 million credits.
I hope this info is helpful, and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM.
Also, READ THE RULES! The link can be found at the top of this page, along with the other drop down menus.
And last but not least, get out there and have fun!
To change your forum username, all you need to do is go into your "UserCP" (up on the top left of the screen, & once there, there's a specific link you can click on to change your username. (& Langolier is right. It will not affect your server accounts at all)
Beyond all the other good infos he gave ya, lemme add about repping:
the /droprep command is a great way to manage which faction you appear as to others, but if you would like to micromanage your other reps down the list, (at least the ones you are friendly/neutral with, you can travel to one of that factions stations, go into the bar & take a mission...Instead of doing the mission though, cancel it w/o leaving the station.
Each time you do this, your rep with that faction will drop a tiny bit...& then, when you run out of missions to take, log off the server & log back in and repeat the process until you get that factions' rep EXACTLY where you want it to be
...& as far as tweaking hostile reps, bar bribes are your friend.
once you get those to neut or higher, take the missions to raise, or like I said, cancel to lower
the /droprep command is a great way to manage which faction you appear as to others, but if you would like to micromanage your other reps down the list, (at least the ones you are friendly/neutral with, you can travel to one of that factions stations, go into the bar & take a mission...Instead of doing the mission though, cancel it w/o leaving the station.
Each time you do this, your rep with that faction will drop a tiny bit...& then, when you run out of missions to take, log off the server & log back in and repeat the process until you get that factions' rep EXACTLY where you want it to be
...& as far as tweaking hostile reps, bar bribes are your friend.
once you get those to neut or higher, take the missions to raise, or like I said, cancel to lower
Hope that helps
I totally forgot about that little trick. Nice catch.