Can you beat the game without visiting the human outpost in The Ur-Quan Masters?

Note: I am still somewhere around the early parts of the game, having befriended several of the alien species. I am unsure about any details of the victory condition (and in fact don't even know if there is one), and have only vague ideas about the overarching mysteries of the game. I would greatly appreciate hiding any spoilers from myself or others who are interested.

I am curious about whether it is possible to beat the game without visiting the human outpost altogether? AFAIK, it would be possible to get enough fuel from the Melnorme traders to last a long while if the player knew what they were doing.

If that is not possible, is it possible to avoid getting the radioactives from the Sol system? Let's say that the player's lander is destroyed on Mercury while having all the radioactives onboard, and they accidentally shoot any others they come across in the system. Is continuing from this point possible? What if the player has only a single unit of fuel?

These questions assume that the player will win all fights with the accompanying Earthling Cruiser, without any losses. However, not with the flagship (without great improvements).

Disclaimer: I did not test this with the original game but with the open source clone The Ur-Quan Masters. While it is based on the original sourcecode and known to be extremely faithful to the original, there is no guarantee that it is mechanically identical to it in every regard.

is possible to beat the game without visiting the human outpost altogether?

No, but you can get pretty far... theoretically. You problem number one is that you will likely get ripped apart by Slylandro probes. For unexplained reasons they will be far more numerous before allying with the outpost. Also, without the outpost you won't be able to get any replacement crewmembers, new flagship modules or new landers.

But when you somehow manage to survive under these conditions, you can theoretically get most things done in the game. If you want to give it a try: A source of bio-matter nearby to pay the Melnorme for fuel is the nearby Alpha Wolf system.

Unfortunately you can't finish the game. In order to do so you will need a special module on your flagship which needs to be installed at the outpost.

is it possible to avoid getting the radioactives from the Sol system?

It doesn't matter where you get the material. An alternative source nearby is Gamma Centauri I which you can just about reach with the 10 units of fuel you start out with... if you get past the Slylandro probes.

Until then, the base is a source of free landers (if you have none) and free fuel (if you are barely out).

What if you break your lander while collecting the radioactive material on Mercury?

Return to the starbase and they will give you a new one.

Yes it is possible. i just did it.

You must win every fight you get into, because you will not have the escape feature that gets installed at Starbase. You must preserve your crew carefully, since you can't replenish it. The only currency that matters is the locations of rainbow worlds and biological data. These are sold to the Melnorme for technology to protect the lander, fuel, and information. The frequency of probe encounters is turned way up when you don't visit Starbase, so you have to deal with that first. Spoilers follow

I got Fwiffo at Pluto, picked up some bio data, and went toward Beta Corvi to get the probe destruct code. I stopped at Epsilon Gruis along the way to ally with the Spathi, primarily to get the Umgah Caster when they disappear 6 months later, but also for the easy bio data. I also stopped at Alpha Pavonis to get the Ur-Quan Warp Pod. After getting the probe destruct code at Beta Corvi, I went straight to the Arilou to have them give me the Portal Spawner, also stopping at the rainbow world that is on the way. From there, once you have the Portal Spawner the game is pretty open. Avoid fights, get crew by visiting aliens who give/sell you fully-crewed ships (Pkunk, Druuge, ZFP), and do a lot of spam-saving to save your crew and avoid those fights.

Here's another guy's account of his no-Starbase run of the game, from a few years ago - http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=817