100% agree! It's been by exact pain point with this game since the very first versions and I've been trying to make it less so every patch. And the upcoming 1.2.0 patch is no exception! There will be several new ways for players to have more control over the upcoming events. I'm also nudging the numbers a bit that for example the further along you go without any crew mates, the more likely it gets to encounter events granting you one. Of course these will not completely "fix" the randomness but I'm pretty positive it'll make it less of a luck factor whether or not your run will do well.
for newgame+, it'd be some kind bonus that you unlock after completing a game, then can choose that bonus at the start of new runs afterwards.
As a hypothetical example, there could be a few relics such as
- extra supplys, you start the game with 1 extra supplys
- spiced supplys, one of your starting supplys is spiced
- armored supplys, one of your starting supplys is armored, but can only be rolled to be 1-3
then you might unlock these at the end of various games, and you can choose one of these boosts at the start of new games