Died for the first time yesterday. It was a bit annoying. I'd not been an any significant space battles, as I was going to wait until I'd explored a bit and collected loads of ship blueprints, then max my ship out in offensive weaponry. However, i hyper jumped directly into an ongoing battle, and couldn't escape. Still, the battle mechanics are quite good!
I appear to be in a strange system devoid of any creatures now, just all desert planets with fairly grumpy sentinels. Might not stick around too long...