I didn't have the goal to buy me a Lakon 9 or an Anaconda as I know I would not be able to fly them with out crashing into a station
So I did a lot of trading at first and then gradually bought better ships. Tried out the Viper, but found that the jump range didn't suit my needs. Had a Hauler then a Lakon 6 and I just love that ship.
Its a good ship for exploring and trading due to its huge jump range. And it can actually handle it self quite good in combat against NPC. But all dependant what type of enemy I faced.
So I visited every system that is present in the game and all planets as well.
And that was my main goal with the Beta, to explore
Then I did some more trading and bought me an fully equipped Cobra and went to those extractions sites I could reach, and that I found during my exploration tour, to improve my combat skills.
And that is mostly what I am doing now when I get online. Bounty hunting in an extraction site.
But I don't play that much as I don't want to get burnt out so I more or less wait for next major release and looking forward to explore more things:)
Edit/ And I've also done some bug hunting as well to help the devs
Both to find new bugs and to se if they have fixed old ones. I stull suffer from stuttering and low fps close to planets that have rings. And it have been like that since they introduced planetary rings, gas planets. And every time they release a new patch they close my ticket and said it solved. So I am pestering them with a new ticket after each patch