Not sure why anyone would spend the time mining all that emerial (or gold) to purchase a ship when you can find them for free and fix them up. I upgraded from the starter ship to a 48 slot ship just by finding abandoned ships and fixing them.
Now, I'm not sure which is the greater hassle, constant mining tons and tons of gold (or emerial) mountains, or consistently having to mine heridium and iron to fix the broke ones. For me, the heridium and iron mining was easier, and a much quicker path to a 48 slot ship.
I had a planet it was easy to spot the crashed spaceships. It was a totally barren, light brown planet, with no vegetation or animals, making surface details easy to make out by flying low over the surface. Since I'm retired, and have nothing better to do, I spent exactly two days finding and fixing ships to get my 48 slot one. I might have a permanent squint on my face now though from staring so intently at the frigging screen. LOL