On several occassions I awarded a crashed pirate scout to players in the Volturnus adventure which was transported to Pale & offically registered to them under a govt contract as a boon for their heroic efforts, and despite the excess cash (re: the quarter mil from the Slave City One ore) and close-to-KH skill sets, they had a tough time paying for it.

"Well who's gonna fly it, kid...you?!?"

Even when dropping the PR skills you still need 10XP for Pilot:1 (system ships only, add another 20XP for starships HS:1-3) or 8XP for astrogating or engineering...and that assumes the skill is part of the hand-waved PSA group. 

Sure, low level D&D characters might get lucky and acquire an enemy lair but then the upkeep is something they typically lack the facilities for. Lv-2 adventurers simply don't have the means to keep a small contingent of troops on their payroll as well as equiping and housing them while they traipse around in dungeons that are weeks of travel from home, let alone for the remainder of the year as well. Not to mention that acquired enemy stonghold is often too easily breached, after all they managed to do it at level 1-2. ;)

2. I was afraid +10 was too much for this one. The first thing players will complain about with the +5/+5 is why? I'd rather just make it +10 and put the points where you like. This mimics the human racial ability BTW. 

#5-7 should require the referee's approval. Like the idea about bad mutations.

#7 you spend the points and all it gets you is a roll on a table where majority of entries arnt that good: 

A. Thruster class privateer parked and rusting in your uncle's back yard. Currently inoperable 

B. Romulus class runabout (system ship) outfitted as a digger shuttle and leased to mining ship Rock Hound. PC can cancel lease and take possession of craft in 1d4 GST weeks if Rock Hound is in the same system or 1d5 if it's elsewhere. But until then PC received X amount of Cr. every month starting (now/next month). 

C. Small KHs freighter

D. You inherited a grand old ship from your dearly departed yazirian but the ship was taken by pirates 3 years ago and the insurance hasn't settled due to technicalities. In addition your dearly departed Yazirians offspring were cut out of the will and even if the insurance Corporation coughed up the 2 million Cr the money will be tied up in probate till who knows when. 

Etc. 

Re: languages, social standing and rank: these were half baked brainstorms have to think on them more. The languages idea is straight out of MERP but I can imagine a character where I might have him fluent in vrusk even though he could not speak it sort of like how Han and Chewie communicated. I like your ideas on social standing but might step it up a notch so that one point buys you a little more. 

The MERP system allowed for purchasing of a magic item with a point. I rather like this and I did create "magic items" for the SF setting in the article "The Magic of Star Frontiers" SFman 18. You don't want artifacts or real magic items but perhaps a rare model of laser pistol that had a ROF of 3 instead of 2 or a more accurate rifle that treats short range as PB, medium as short and etc. Might need a more robust list of "magic items" for players to choose from. 

Even so, I simply don't see the need for ship skills as a beginning player and I'll expand on yet another reason behind that:

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Now one option I have entertained on several occasions is having players new to the game start off with those mook-grade characters and once they have the basics of the game down I award them d10 X 100,000 credits and sufficient XP to acquire a lv-2 ship skill (including the PR skills) along with adding 10+d5 years to their age, thus vaulting them into the "future" of their own game...thereby allowing them to entertain the idea of being a privateer captain or whatever ship campaign they may have in mind. They're on their own for fabricating a decent back story for their characters to cover that time gap. ;)

I believe the skill to operate a gunnery station in a vehicle should be entry level. In fact it should be its own skill and covers operating a vehicle weapon, star ship weapon, artillery piece and we can just presumed that targeting software and hardware has become fairly standardized in the Frontier. Gunnery is gunnery. 

Now piloting skill restricts level one to system ships only but I ask you, is thrust, pitch and yaw any different for atomic powered craft over chemical rockets. I'd scrap that. And the other level based star ship size piloting requirements are not so much about ability to pilot as what government agencies like to see for experience to pilot that size craft. So let's say we change level one pilot skill to allow a character to pilot a fighter or shuttle. This is a reflection on his license but he actually could attempt to pilot any size ship. There is the caveat that a newbie pilot would probably have trouble piloting a HS 20 ship in tight quarters like say docking with a station or in a complicated flight pattern around a planet with multiple space stations so if a pilot was piloting a ship 2 grades above his license level in a stressful situation and a skill check was required then a penalty could be applied. 

I also think demolitions should be tech PSA skill.

I am going to politely disagree on two points.

1). Ships in Traveller are more common but still very expensive to operate and maintian. Most of the basic scenario is trying to keep up with payments if the crew is willing to give up pay and do some odd jobs on the side. Besides the basic models of ships were Scout and Far Trader. Scouts could be recalled to active duty at any time. Far Traders could make a profit but it was made clear they should do so out in the edge of space away from the Megacorps, Corps and Government sponsored merchant ships.

2)Jed and Shadow if spaceships and starships are so rare in SF we do you two keep creating more and more? (Okay this one is tongue in cheek)

Golwin Academy is the canon SF answer to WW2 "quick training". As I mentioned though there is a commitment that goes along with it that many players do not want to accept. Two years & a few ability checks later and you have a lv-2 ship skill yet with all the restrictions that prevent proper adventuring (not to mention the even more ridiculous amounts of XP needed to increase your rank). In other words, it'll be a long time before your Space Fleet pilot can move the yoke in the direction he/she really wants to go.

<sigh> ####ing multi-quote bug again...

Unless I missed something I believe we're in agreement to all you've said on this premise.

First and foremost I said they were not common, which should never be confused with rare. Despite what every seller on e-Bay would have us believe, D&D module B10 Night's Dark Terror is uncommon --- not rare as is always the (false) claim --- because if you want one there are always several available on e-Bay (sometimes multiple copies under the same seller, yeah...so much for "rare") but you'll have to pay a lot to get one. Meanwhile orange copies of B3 Palace of the Silver Princess are rare because regardless of how badly you want one and how much unlimited cash that you're willing to spend on it, good luck finding one. Big difference. 

Secondly you will note my offerings are of the smaller variety, as in what those who just acquired their new ship skills (earned or otherwise) could actually operate. 

Finally, not all of those deck plans I have rendered over the years actually belong to anyone...instead many of them are simply there in case the need arises where I might have to utilize them in a pinch.

Ship construction costs are spelled out throughout the KH campaign book (as well as AD rules) but the bulk of them can be found on the last two pages of the KH book.

Life Support costs are spelled out on p14.

Mining, freight, passenger transport, exploration, and research are spelled out on pp19-22 and more info on the first three can be found on pp44-47.

Spacesuit upkeep is laid out on pp28-29.

Ships' vehicle refueling isn't covered but can be easily hand-waved via the generic chemical drive fuel cost of "250Cr per load" seeing as they're easily HS:1 (or less).

Loans for ships (or anything else for that matter) are spelled out on pp40-42.

Ship crew wages can be found on p54 (as well as the AD skill table wages for non-ship skill crew, re: troops, medics, and technicians etc).

Additional info such as berthing fees and a decent ship log (which can give you an idea how much time elapses) can be found in the Dramune Run module.