how does it choose what sectors to explore? would 2 people starting out in the same sector in fed space at the same time with nothing explored but fed space explored the same sectord of would they take different paths? if so, what would determine this?

I'm pretty sure you'd start out doing the same sectors, or close to it. I've never seen much randomness in that script. That's why you should always mow out to a random sector before starting it.