Captain's Log, Stardate Something-Something...

concerning 7 (and by extension 9) the Traveller setting basically made space easy, gravity controlling plates were common on most every world and power was cheap. you could weld together a basic hull and install the components yourself as a DIY kit fairly straight forward, Traveller ships dont have to ascend at escape velocity or deal with insane atmospheric friction or pressures outside the normal ones for a planet. a leisurely ascent and gravity manipulated free fall to where ever you are going. The Jump Drive and computer would have to be store bought (unless you started out with something like Jump Drive 5 and Computers 5 where you probably could scratch build them yourself) but aside from those two parts, yeah, you could get grav plates, hydrogen storage tanks, life support, reactor and... i dunno, basic circuitry and doors? and have your own interstellar clunker on the cheap. I dont think Traveller ever bothered with hazardous radiation in space so you kind of got a pass on that one. We'll have to see how Starfinder handles ships but i expect they will likewise have some kind of handwavium approach that makes space access just as easy.

Yeah I imagine things like escape velocity and all that can be ignored except when it counts for the adventure. I know escape velocity, I just have the ship use up some more fuel. That's how I do it with my hack of SWN. But generally, fuel usage won't come up unless you do some strenuous to your ship (combat, escape/enter a planet's atmosphere, high speed maneuvers, going above normal speed, etc.). Escape velocity only became a plot point when I had an adventure where the players were stranded on a massive Dyson sphere that had a higher escape velocity than their ship was able to achieve. Was a good adventure.

Also I really like the idea of DIY clunkers for the players. I'm imagining something like the Hot Rod/Rat Rod/Performance Vehicle culture we see here with cars and trucks. Imagine Roadkill in space, where if you have knowledge of wielding and a blueprint for an old ship (or a 3D printer fab), you can make your own ship that can limp across the vesper sky. So all these guys are running their 2857 U.S.S Chargers and Datsun 240z that trundle their way from planet to planet ;)

imagine trying to be a port authority or coast guard in a setting like that. "Yeah, three thousand technicals arrived today, we expect inspections to be completed in about four years if we get our new funding approved..."

"Is that thing registered with any legitimate authority?"

"Well, YOUR MOM said it was the coolest ship she's ever- ack!"

This is great news! I'm hoping the level of ship customization will run the gamut from one-man starfighters to immense capital ships to maybe even Gundam-esque space mecha and divine/arcane-powered spacecraft! (+5 Holy Mithral TIE Interceptor of the Infinite Sky, anyone? :P)