Starting out

When you just start out (or after a reroll) you will find yourself in a shuttle with the game suggesting you to get out. This is a good suggestion so just follow the instructions and go out of the shuttle. You'll end up at the commerce main junction way at the alpha complex. There's some shops and other facilities around but if you are eager to really get started you probably want to head east to the complex-alpha mall lobby.

At this point the game may or may not give you some hints about terminals you see here. Before you can use any of them you will have to set both your @gender and background though. Also, take a moment to @describe me as  to set a custom description. It doesn't have to be an essay - even a single line is better than nothing.

The colony dispatch terminal is used if you want to start a new colony or if you don't have a beacon setup. The link-up terminal can be used if you, or somebody you want to join up with has a beacon setup and active at his or her colony. Take a moment to examine the terminals and use the one that is appropriate for your situation (it will probably be the dispatch terminal for most new players). No matter what terminal you use, you'll eventually end up in a drop pod falling towards a planet.

Backgrounds
Before you can set out, the game requires you to choose a background. There is really no right or wrong choice here so I recommend you take the one that seems the most fun and compatible with the things you would like to do.

If you really have no clue I recommend going for the ranger (or botanist perhaps). These are very straightforward to complete for new players as they only depend on you having a few skills. You do have a bit more control with the ranger background on when you want to finish it but it gives you one less reroll point.

If you go with botanist you get to explore and discover a lot which also will add to your blueprint chip collection (more on that later, just collect these for now and store them somewhere safe). Additionally, you will probably find stuff that you need to research or hack. Store these somewhere safe too as they will be useful later when you are doing the lab technician or hacker backgrounds.

Note that some backgrounds involve jobs that include wait times (both ranger and botanist have these).

Setting up
After you have been dispatched to a planet or linked up with an existing colony, you'll find yourself with a basic set of harvesting and crafting equipment. Also you get some other helpful items such as the datapad and handbook (which you should read). Take a moment to look through your inventory and examine everything to find out what actions (commands) it supports.

Afer this check out your crafting tools (probably only the basic crafting tool) and do a list basic crafting tool to see what things it can craft. One of these is a pre-fab shelter kit which you should make as soon as possible. Before you do though, try to find a nice spot. Ideally, it has a nice long room description signalling the abundance of a lot of resources (in particular inert metal)but this is not essential.

You do want to set up near a spot that has a good variety of biomes nearby. When starting out, you probably want to be on a planet that has forest, jungle, mountains and desert and a spot that has those biomes nearby. Eventually you'll need to harvest in other biomes too but that can wait. If you have the aforementioned biomes on your planet (and preferably nearby) you'll be in a good position to craft everything you need to get spaceborn.

Note that you can also use the map command to check out various aspects of your surroundings. The command itself will explain about its various options but the map biomes one is the more useful.

Don't worry too much though. If you find a better spot later on you can always dismantle your buildings and relocate. You can bring most stuff and get the materials for your buildings back but you probably have to rebuild your processors.

Skills
Before you start exploring for a good spot, check your status and skills and note the amount of skillpoints available. You could probably learn some skills right now. You can use the skill command to browse the available skill groups and also to view skills in each group and see what they do. The skill system in Wayfar1444 is very friendly and facilitates trying different skills and combinations out. If you learn a skill and you are not satisfied with it or if you just want to try out something else, you can always forget a skill and get 75% of your skillpoints back.

This also means you don't have to create an army of alts to try out various things as you can often easily flip your complete build around on your main faster than you can setup a new character. The reason for this is that you get skillpoints by using skills. So the more skills you have, the faster you will get skillpoints. This means that on a developed character it's usually not a big problem to regain the skillpoints that were lost.

When you are a brand new character, the max amount of skillpoints you gain (and consequently spend) is 2500. You can increase this amount by completing your background and rerolling.