Welcome to the Verse! I can't give you much advice regarding how to secure your sticks considering that I've been flying with unmounted sticks in SC for over a decade now. That said, I can tell you that playing AC repetitively will burn out your hands and wrists much quicker than in the Persistent Universe (PU) given the much more repetitive nature of the AC maps. If you are like me then you will likely spend a lot more time in the PU doing other things than ship combat, like simply traveling between POIs as well as FPS combat, mining, salvaging, looting, etc. I do ship combat to be sure, but when it's interspersed with other things then I find it less taxing on my hands and wrists.

I'd also encourage you to go ahead and jump into the PU and not worry too much about losing resources as this is still very much an Alpha game and it's very likely that your character will be reset in the PU with the next major update anyway. You can always buddy up with someone experienced in the PU by asking in chat or utilize the Guide System to locate one of the many, helpful volunteer guides. I would also recommend doing the tutorial if you haven't already, but if you didn't do it initially I don't think it will give you the option again until after the next wipe.

The only tips I can give regarding combat is first to practice and second to make sure you are never flying in a straight line while in combat. Combat has changed in 3.23 with the introduction of Master Modes, so many of the resources I might suggested for reading/viewing are a bit out of date. Still, you might want to check out the Legacy Instructional Series. Again, some of the information is a bit dated in regards to the mechanics of things, but the core concepts they put forth for combat training still largely hold. There are also a number of resources listed on the official "Learn How to Play"(https://robertsspaceindustries.com/playstarcitizen) page on the RSI website, which you might want to check out.

As for requesting a hangar, that can be done either using the comm's MFD in your ship, the comms app in your Mobi (port ATC is listed under Friends), or by mapping the request landing keybind (it may be already bound to hold N, but I can't say for sure right now as I have a custom mapping for that action [backslash]). The mapping can be found in the Options menu by clicking "KEYBINDINGS" -> "ADVANCED CONTROLS CUSTOMIZATIONS" -> "Flight Movements" -> "Request Landing".

Again, welcome to the verse and I sincerely hope you enjoy your experience.

Don't fuss about resources, many players (myself included) are happy to take a new guy on for missions and are often looking for crew members.

You can ask in chat if someone has a specific ship that they are willing to call for you or if someone does a specific gameplay loop and is in need of a pair of hands. For example miners often look for ppl. be it as miner or scout.

I am deeply in love with Orision and thus recommend the crusader system security forces as a good starting point. A couple of missions and you should be able to do the 'liberation / defend' missions on the planet where you fly to them living platforms to stop a raid on Orision. There a bunch of boxes with food and drinks if you don't like buying that and you can take the npcs weapons and armor. Each mission is also decent pay imo.

I can't offer much advice in terms of using the sticks. Better in combat, tbh do a bunch of bounty hunter missions and just go blow (npc) ships up. Alternatively join events like jump town. There is always some form of pvp going on that trains you.

For guides to get better at combat, don't look at anything older than a month or two. The latest update has made some major changes to the combat mechanics. (And in general for this game, older guides for anything get outdated quickly).

If you want to get better at ship combat, check out the videos from Avenger_One. He does a ton of research into ship combat in the game and has put out a lot of useful guides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfS0VRkxI24

And if you really want to get into it, checkout his Foundations course here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PTNBCeyrc8LvzCedBkwp-4RB-YNsB-G

As far as landing in hangars, there's a proximity assist setting that's enabled by default to allow you to easily make minor adjustments as you're landing your ship in a hangar. The problem with this setting is that it drastically cuts the power to your thrusters while you're going into a hangar, so if you already have a lot of momentum... you're not stopping until your ship has become a pancake.

If you mean ping the hangars as in asking the ATC for a landing pad, you can do that in any of your ship's displays, just go to menu and then look for Comms. You can also open up your mobiglass, go to chat (F11 takes you straight there) then look for the ATC and click the button to call them.
Most pilots just use the Alt+N keybind (tap, don't hold!) to quickly request takeoff/landing.