Hi DeathKnyte - Welcome to the forum.
If I could figure out how to safely dock with a space station
After you have practiced what El Viejo has suggested and you have started to get the knack fly away from the station and try the following: -
1) Fly towards the beacon and once you reach it come to a stop.
2) Turn your ship to face the station.
3)You should now be correctly lined up with the stations docking port. Start to fly towards the station (You do not need to try to match the rotation of the station until you get close to the docking bay).
4) When you are near the station start to rotate your ships to match the rotation of the station and hopefully you can land.
5) Once you are confident with manual landing see if you can afford a docking computer.
At first it can be quite hard to avoid getting killed but don't worry it happens to all of us.
The best way I found was to avoid too much combat until you can afford a little equipment. I would suggest the following: -
1) Front beam laser.
2) ECM.
3) Fuel scoop (To pick up any cargo pods and make some extra credits).
Therefore try to earn money by trading furs to industrial systems and computers to agricultural systems.
Initially with new games I try to keep in the safer systems i.e. Corporate States and Democracies so that the number of pirates will be less (This will give you a better chance of survival). Also when exiting witch space do not fly directly to the planet instead fly using the jump option for a few seconds at approximately 90 degrees from the planet then head for the planet (This again reduces the chance of meeting too many pirates).
Once you have accumulated some credits you can invest in the equipment noted above and you will be in a position to fight back, destroy the majority of missiles launched at you and collect the booty.
Fuel injectors are also very useful as you can use them to make a quick get away if things are going bad.
Hope that this helps.