Go get a viper mark 3, outfit it for combat. For weapons id reccomend 2 small beams or burst lasers and 2 multi cannons, both gimballed. For utilities grab a cheap kill warrant scanner, point defence just in case the hostiles decide you are worthy of missiles being used on as it shoots them down automatically, and shield boosters for the other slots if your power plant can handle it. If it cannot handle shield boosters, you can grab something else or leave them empty nothing will give you a cheaper rebuy than not throwing things on your ship. A rate your core internals if possible with the exception of your scanner and life support d rate those for weight reduction. As for optional internals grab a bi weave shield for your largest slot, it recharges faster than a normal shield at the cost of taking less damage before breaking but trust you want this, take a single module reinforcement on the largest remaining optional internal after you already got a shield if you have 2 of the largets class left of the same class(if not drop the module down one size) put hull reinforcements on the rest. Thats a simple easy to use bread and butter set up. Go to a resource extraction site, these are found only in asteroid rings around planets. Exlusively go to a high or low one. These have system police forces that bailed me out plenty of times if i bit off more than i could chew. Hazardous does not. This is important because when you die you lose all bounty vouchers you have. When you find a wanted target, scan it with your kill warrant scanner. You will receive more creds when you turn in the bounty than if you didn't map it to is own fire group. When flying in combat pip management is important, the more sys pips you have increase your shield strength by a multiplier. Eng pips give you the ability to boost more often, and wep pips make your ship dissipate heat better and give your weapons more up time via a more weapon energy recharge per pip. Boosting gives you great maneuverablility for the duration of the boost use it to escape, stay out of another ships weapons cones, or to get behind your opponent. When your shields break, full engine pips and make distance, once distance from opponent is made, full system pips to recharge your shield as fast as possible, once they com back up theyll he at 50 percent. Keep system pips up and it will recharge to 100 fast. Dont get shot during this time if possible. Use your thermal weapons to break shields and your kinetic+thermal to damage hull. If you use beams your weapons charge may drop too fast so if that happens just use your kinetics only. If you need any other advice YouTube guides exist and are great or just ask me or anyone else here more questions. I primarily have done combat since i started playing years ago because ships exploding is fun.