Light Level: You can find a light level indicator on the crafting screen; it’s in the upper right-hand corner. You can craft in Shady or Brightly Lit conditions. Generally, though, you can just rely on common sense; if you’re underground or it’s night, you’ll need a light source of some kind (unless you acquire one of the high-end Night Vision traits, but outside of a lucky find, you probably won’t get those for a while; the base Night Vision trait won’t cut it).
Regarding your current situation, there’s two things to keep in mind. First off, krecks are evasive little bastards, and thus naturally hard to hit. Looks like you caught a bit of bad luck in that regard, but on the bright side, that also means there’s probably some lootable bodies right outside your shelter (of course, you might also have a Mi-go outside your shelter too, which… well, let’s hope that’s not the case). Second, a switchblade takes a -2 penalty to-hit, which means it’s actually pretty darn inaccurate as far as weaponry goes. Try using your makeshift crowbar as a weapon here instead; it gains a +2 bonus to-hit, and might enable you to land a few blows. Alternately, you might try your hand (no pun intended) at unarmed combat here, since it seems you’ve got some unarmed combat skill.
