I know this was written two years ago, but is this still the case? It is my understanding by what I read that deep explorations pretty much require a repair unit or your efforts will be short lived. I have also read that some folks have two so one can repair the other.
It is now recommended (at least by me) to take an AFMU since it can now also repair cracks in the windshield. It could not do that when the guide was written. Note that the AFMU still can not repair damage to your powerplant or your ship hull. But the AFMU is not required, it is still very possible to explore without having an AFMU as long as you are careful and not crash into too many stars.
That is correct, you can not switch to your docked vulture to do combat unless you travel to the station that has your vulture. But I think you can still do arena pvp even if you are a long way from civilization.Also, what if I'm in deep deep into the galaxy but want to log in for a day and hop into my docked vulture two thousand lights years away to do some combat. I can't until I fly back to civilization, can I?
I do wish Frontier would add functionality to have several commanders tied to an account so you can have an explorer, a trader, a bounty hunter, a pirate etc depending on what you want to role play today.