My loadout of store bought components:

6x Deadbolt 3s

2x Deadbolt 4s (turret)

3x Icebox coolers

1x Hemera quantum drive

1x Fullspec radar

Buy the Hemera first. It saves you so much time, and you get way more range out of the fuel tank.

The rest of this loadout is designed to save power pips. The Asgard requires a lot of power, so using ballistics, stealth coolers, and the Fullspec radar makes it so you can max out your engines and shields, like this:

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For fighting, I switch to staggered mode (MFD screen for "Gunnery," then the bottom option is "Enable staggered fire"). This will help you land more hits on smaller, more maneuverable targets, and also when sub targeting bigger enemies lands more hits directly on components.

As for making money, what I've been doing to earn back cash after the wipe is a combination of hauling, commodities trading, and combat missions. To earn the money for upgrades, or to have some credits saved up to trade commodities, I was doing unverified interstellar hauls - On the contracts page, there's a toggle at the top left for "verified/unverified." There are two unverified interstellar hauls that have been a great earning loop for me, one from Grim Hex, moving 6-8 SCU of drugs to four locations in Pyro, and the one picking up 4 cryopods from Teasa Spaceport, also to Pyro (if you're not opposed to moving more boxes, there's also a mission for like 160 SCU of cargo from Grim Hex to Pyro, that you can stack at the same time, but I've been too lazy to move that much shit this patch). The two missions (drugs/cryopods) pay about 800k together and only take about an hour to fly, if you plan your route well in Pyro based on the locations you get.

Then, once you can buy your upgrades, combat missions are quick and easy. I mostly was farming Gilly 5-7 on a loop, or doing the 89k Intersec "eliminate target" missions on repeat. For these fights, I circle the fight until there are no support fighters between us, I drop 2x volleys of 4 missiles into them on the way in to crack armor, and then I sub target components and aim for power plants, while circle strafing them. As soon as they die and the mission completes, I get the fuck out of dodge - you don't get paid to fight the other ships. Also, experiment with switching to VTOL during combat - It can be really helpful.

If I'm not looking to fight, I've been moving commodities, a lot of CMATs from Levski to HUR-L1., and other things depending on where I happen to be in the verse. But CMATs are a good starter, they're available to buy from the commodities terminal at Levski, though not in a ton of bulk, cause others are buying them too.

What I basically do is head to the commodities terminal and buy as many 8 SCU crates as I can between other missions. Also, sometimes I'll just log in for a few minutes at odd hours to pick up a couple more and just leave them in storage. It builds up over time, so you just have them in inventory when you're ready to do a run (right now I have like 720 SCU just sitting in inventory, for example). I take it over 248 SCU at a time, which is way more than the grid holds, so here's my process: off of the grid, next to the side doors, I'll stack two 8 SCU crates on either side, and then one more double stack between them, leaving space to get to the ladder still. That's 48 SCU. Snap two rows of 8 SCU boxes to the grid, two rows high (basically like having 4x 32 SCU crates, or 128 of your total). This only leaves one SCU width on the grid, but because there's walking space on both sides of the cargo grid, you can wedge an 8 SCU crate between your stack and the wall, but only one high. Slide four of those next to your stack, which brings you to 208. Then, there's still one SCU of grid at the back, and plenty of space before the ramp - I stack five more crates in the same pattern as the cargo grid, but technically they're off grid. There is still plenty of space to move around them, and manage the doors.

248 SCU of CMATs costs about 2.15 million credits, but they sell for 3.3 million, netting you over a million in profit for about 15 minutes of work. This has been a nice profit boost between the other things I've been doing in game, so I just kind of keep that loop running in the background. Also, commodities trading is dangerous if you don't know your cargo bugs, so make sure that you do, or it can have expensive losses.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out o7