Dreydahh

1. SE is screwin up my PC too. On planets i have like 20 FPS max. Here I have always at least 30FPS, most of the time 50-60FPS. 2. Never encountered any crash here, nor bugs that makes game unplayable. I play on single player only. Some guys who checked multi are reporting on forum poor net code optimization. 3. Yup ya can change grid size etc. Also there is axis mirroring so your ships doesnt have to look like crap. And an awesome feature which allows you to easily copy-paste parts of your ship. 4. I strongly suggest that you test it first with a free demo available here: https://www.avorion.net/demo/. It have only one type of resource available but you can test that building mode which is great imo. (A lot easier and faster comparing to SE which you mentioned).

Yup, check out your turrent mining efficiency. If you have 15% ef. you'll yield only 15% of this mentioned 6000 iron which is 900.

This game have procedurally generated content. Just like in for example Minecraft. Depending on your galaxy seed, stuff tends to be in completly different location. There is a topic http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,815.0.html where guys are trying to share some interesting galaxy seeds. Maybe it's worth lookin into it.

I suggest you explore nearby systems for wormholes, cause they tend to warp you for very far distances.