Been trading and doing missions out of Tau Ceti to earn money, clawing my way slowly toward a Cobra Mk III (currently in an Adder as I figured it'd be faster than using the Sidewinder since I can carry more stuff). Then I'll probably erm...I'm not sure. At some point I expect I'll kit my old Sidewinder out with some guns and stuff (I removed the starting guns to make more space, found out it instead just increased the jump distance slightly because cargo space is done differently here to how it was in Frontier, but went ahead and took 'em out anyway) and go somewhere to get some combat practice before I risk a ship that I actually spent money on. Might save up for a Viper at some point if I want to properly go pirate-hunting.
Meanwhile I intend to use the Cobra as my "main" ship (as far as I can tell it's the most balanced of those available so far). Of the three factions, I think the Alliance sounds like the one I'm most interested in but as far as I can tell from the galaxy map their systems are really far away and seem relatively sparse and spread out compared to the Feds and the Imps. But I'll look into whatever their main system is and go there at some point, and do missions for them so they like me and stuff. I don't know if doing missions for one faction messes you up for another so I've not taken any of the Fed missions I'm being offered. Plus they might be dangerous and I don't fancy gtting blown up .