Been playing this game since it came out, after my dad picked it up from his old workplace, which heavily dealt with Microsoft products. It was a blast to play, and I've been trying to enhance my experience through multiplayer!
I've been playing for a few hours now as a simple Pennsylvania miner, but I want in on more intense situations, such as battles or dogfights!
Welcome man, Penny dosent receive a whole lot of attention as that system is geared towards new players. However in the same breath there are instances where unlawfuls will come to interact with new players same with the lawfuls. My advice, save up money get a nice Ship flyable by freelancers get a freelancer ID and explore, many things have changed since the vanilla game.
Above all have fun.
Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy. - V. Havel
Just like Kalh said, stick around in Pennsylvania for a while and make some money. What I would advise - if you're willing to take the risk - is taking the Helium you mine to Manatum in Cayman - It's about 9 jumps away from Penn, but it pays well if you can get your hands on a 3.5k Transport (The highest a FL ID can allow) or if you want to haul for a corporate ID like Ageira or BMM - their respective company/house's 5ker transport. If you don't know how to get there, the top navigation bar here has a Interactive navmap link under Player Utilities (Also available at space.discoverygc.com/navmap).
If you want to take more risk - factions such as The Council offer bonuses for shipping goods to their stations and planets if you sign up your ship to their mission/bounty boards - however, you'll need to record the transaction of delivering the goods via screenshot.
Either way, whatever path you wish to take, I and my fellow angels are here to help. Please do not hesitate to ask anyone with an [Angel] Tag in-game for help!