Open: yes, there are people who shoot newbies. A few of them (very few) are notorious for it.
On the other hand:
- I haven't met any of them in game yet, and I do play (on my second CMDR) mainly in Open, but I drop back into Solo or Group mode if there's too many people around (my FPS take a huge hit then) or if I just want to hng out with a few people in the same group. I have met, however, other CMDRs who attacked me without giving a reason, and some CMDRs who were RP'ing as pirates (properly!). Which gets me to the main point (and that one is important):
Never fly what you can't rebuy!
If you're in ED and lose your ship (for whatever reasons), you can rebuy it (without the cargo) for IIRC 5% of the original purchase price. If you can't afford that, you're back in the starter Sidey, no matter how advanced you thought you were. Many people have lost their hard earned Python that way, and a lot of those have (at least announced to...) quit the game.
Oh, and when you die, you lose all collected and unsold exploration data, combat bonds or bounty vouchers, too. Unpleasant (I'd use a stronger word, but we have a pretty rigorous filter on the forums) if you're on your way back from an exploration trip to Beagle Point.
- Delivery or exploration ships: well, first of all, like everybody else, you'll start of in the trusty Sidewinder. You'll then have to decide whether to upgrade and engineer that Sidey, or switch to one of the "better"[1] ships. In either case, you'll need money for that, and at the start, that will look like a lot of money. Unless you want to take some shortcuts (I wouldn't call them cheats, but you'll need to use serious out-of-game information), that will take some time. You may see that the next few ships after the Sidey are pretty cheap in their basic loadout, but the upgrades rapidly accumulate to a few million credits. Keeping in mind that the advanced discovery scanner, which is basic equipment for exploration, will set you back 1 million Credits, my small go-to ship for anything non combat related is the Dolphin (requires Horizons).
- You'll have to learn how to fly (and, more importantly, land) before you even start any missions. Can't hand in any missions if your ship is now a streak of paint on the inside of a station. That's what the tutorial missions are there for. Do them. Just don't despair on the advanced combat tutorial - that one is called "advanced" for a reason, and is pretty much harder than most combat scenarios (except PvP) you'll encounter inside the game. Controller/stick - well, you can (many do, among them some of the best combat pilots) play the game with keyboard and mouse. How far you want to take the immersion is entirely up to you, there's a few really crazy people here on the forum in that regard...
[1]Arguably, the Sidey can be a very good multi purpose ship. There are people who go for triple Elite in the Sidey, there's one guy who took a Sidey to Beagle Point, and there's at least one PvP pilot who will attack anything in his Sidey.
Admittedly, those upgraded and engineered Sideys have little resemblance to your starter ship.
