Re: There seems to be a lot of confusion about 'offline mode'.
You see the effects of the players in terms of changes to prices and stock of goods at starports, for example. But the markets shift with the influence of NPC 'players' too AIUI. The lists of missions/jobs available at starports are NOT, AFAIK, affected by other players, human or AI.
So you might arrive at the starport to find they will take your cargo of Boiled Greebo Pelts at 78Cr/ton, log off for dinner and return to find the price has dropped to 40Cr/ton. That's the theory. I have yet to see it operate like that in practice.
I think (this isn't gospel, I'm just a beta tester) that solo players' influences feed in to the markets just as everyone else's do, so solo players are only 'solo' in the sense that all human players are invisible to them.