Instancing a single asteroid for a player doing that section of the tutorial, giving them a special transponder-style point to go to, is probably a better solution than just mass-spawning a bunch of asteroids that will immediately be harvested by efficient miners; the problem of new players not seeing asteroids will just come back again. There seems to be a lack of foresight when it comes to solving problems right now. Problems should be solved and not waved over with some random change that has not had its impact fully weighed. I would like to comment on the "PvP station" nonsense, as it's the same kind of hand-waving non-fix as mass-spawning asteroids, but that's not for here.
One big issue I see regarding balance is the most profitable stuff in bulk is contained in the safe zone - Charodium - and nowhere else close. It's a requirement for all the upgraded and PvP stuff, but is found with near unlimited, free, no-risk supply inside the safe zone. This doesn't make sense. It should be at least in Zone 2 outside the safe zone, so you have to risk your ship to get PvP-related or upgrade-related stuff. As it stands, Charodium in the safezone is the main reason people don't want to go out. You can make a large 1000-crate hauler and mass-obtain all the stuff you need to make your PvP ships. If players are buying Charodium from other players, and Charodium is the main ore driving PvP, it should only be found outside the safe zone. Basically, the ore used the most for PvP should never be inside a safezone. PvE players should be happy to grind 1000 crates of safe zone Bastium and sell them to the NPC vendor for 1k per stack; that is PvE. As soon as the ore is listed on the auction house, it becomes economic PvP. Right now, PvP is fueled by no-risk mining in the safezone. There's no reason to leave.
Regarding the main post about so much area to explore, but being unable to as a PvE player, because it's risky... this is where the devs need to take a stand. The mindset is that the OP is "deprived" of this area. It's fully accessible; the deprivation is only in their mind. Making the game easier for players who take no risks doesn't succeed. Nowhere was Starbase listed as a PvE game; it has massive guns, lots of focus on ship and first-person combat, everything can be exploded and destroyed and broken in a dozen different ways, the trailers and feature videos show hundreds of ships fighting each other -- the tech designed by the dev team is for player-vs-player conflict-- - but somehow there's an idea creeping around that PvE is failing when it doesn't exist as a core component of the game. Safe zones are necessary as a reality of gameplay, to avoid spawn-camping basically. Beyond that, it's ok to tell people yes, it will be risky to go out into the game world, and yes, you might lose your ship, and yes, you will be ok if you lose your ship, and yes, this means you should join a large group to gain some safety in the game world.
"If you want to be part of the big content, you need to be part of a big group." This succeeds.
"You can do anything in the game with no risk all by yourself." This fails.
Everything should be seen through a lens of how to bring people together. The tools for this, like company management, company ships, a group setting where group members can invite other people so it's not just the owner who might be offline, transponder "frequencies" so people can see each other without revealing their position to everyone, and so much more, should be the focus.
Thinking about the future of the game, is it the intent that all the warp gates and all the stations and all the interesting stuff be linked with safe zones and safe-zone-guarded experience of all these things? There will never be a need for tech that allows 100 ships to fly together if everything can be done more profitably solo inside a safe zone. It is far more interesting to see what length players will go to in order to secure their existence in the game world.
