God I've had some awful, awful runs on that game. I've never really made it very far at all - I think, more than anything, I just enjoyed always starting over, just rolling the dice and seeing how I did, knowing full well that I was crap at the game and would probably die very rapidly, haha.
Yeah, you can really get screwed out of nowhere. This past week I had 4 consecutive runs that I lost within 4 jumps of starting, but I did end up winning with the Zoltan B, so that's good. The Lanius are by far my favorite guys to run with. Venting all the O2 out of the ship and upgrading door strength makes boarding parties hilarious. Also getting a crew teleporter and jumping your guys into the enemy Med/Clone Bay and then the O2 room produces similarly enjoyable results.