The issue with a lot of these guides is they are really designed for people that already have disposable income or have a firm understanding of the basics already.
In the very beginning starting from zero the most important thing to me is just to do missions. this helps you get used to the controls and the basics. Find a heavy populated system and just do missions for the same factions to increase your faction rep with them. As you increase your faction rep/rank the missions pay out more. I'd say do this at a base where you want to get rep to unlock faction specific ships since they are behind rank walls. You can tell you are ranking up with the little faction bar that shows when you complete a mission or in the system tab. once you get friendly/allied the ships and stations will turn green on the radar. This is also helpful because when you are allied often the police ships dont scan you when you come to a station.
Another important thing to do is when you goto a system that you are going to grind in land on a station there before you start running them. If you die it spawns you at the last station you last landed at which could be very far away.
Its important to recognize that the different factions are sometimes competing with each other so just picking missions randomly will keep your rep from going up since you gain rep with one faction then do a mission for their enemy and it reduces your rep with them.
Usually you want to do the missions for factions that are aligned with a power (Fed, Empire, Alliance) preferably the controlling faction and generally their enemies are the criminal factions (with names that say 'Mafia', 'Pirates' etc) You can check their status with each other in the system tab.
As your rank and rep increases so do the mission payouts.
I mostly currently do bulletin board missions for cash and mostly fly small ships. (Right now flying a keelback) But I can easily pick up 3-4 missions from one station now that pay out $300-500k or more each that are one hop drop off trade missions. I also do a lot of planetary scanning and salvage missions.
So its not 'ZOMG $70mil/hr BECOMEZ DA BAZILLION IN MINUTS!!' but I can easily average $1mil/jump just doing BB missions hopping station to station and this is with no combat involved since I mostly trade and most of my ships dont even have weapons. I'm kind of a casual player but I average like $10/mil day playing 2-3 hours a day since I work during the week. Over time it definitely piles up and it also helps me keep from getting burned out.
For me starting out combat missions arent necessarily the best way to make your 'working' buffer money. not saying bounty hunting isnt profitable because it is. But the problem with combat in the beginning is you make money then die so you are taking two steps forward one step back. Its also why I dont really fly the big ships a lot unless its a CG or something. My A-rated T6 has a $378K rebuy as compared to my T-9 which is like $8mil. $378K is one BB mission. $8Mil is a days worth of work setback. My method is a I have multiple single role small ships to minimize losses if I die. So I have a mining T6, a cargo T6, a multirole Keelback, an Asp for Exploring, a Cobra III for smuggling, a Viper for pew pewing.
I also think its good to try out all the basic job roles in the game on small ships to get an understanding of how the mechanics work. Mining, exploring, combat, salvaging, smuggling, passengers. Learn to use limpets, refineries, discovery scanners, interdictors, wake scanners, etc.
This playstyle isnt for everyone since a lot of people play the game mostly to shoot stuff and theres nothing wrong with that. But using this method you can actually accumulate some cash to buy a combat ship then shoot stuff when you want to and trade or do other stuff when you want to. The big ships will come over time.
Reading the forums it kind of makes you want to rush to a big ship. But the thing about the big ship is they are just like luxury cars. They cost a lot to buy initially, but that doesnt include all the upgrades or the maintenance on them thats the hidden cost. Just having a big ship with low rating is worse than having a small ship with A ratings for me. The Anaconda is base $146M but with decent rated modules its pushing $500M+
I suggest working up to a Cobra since its a really versatile ship that can be a workhorse. It has decent hardpoints, can carry cargo, has a good jump range and is fast for smuggling.
Once you master that ship the rest will come.
Also use these websites they are really helpful (none are mine BTW credit due to their creators):
the wiki to understand stuff:
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite_Dangerous_Wiki
Shipyard configurators to see what builds look like and what they will cost:
http://www.edshipyard.com/
https://coriolis.io/
note: when buying ships or components always buy them from a station exploited by Li Yong Rui. His stations provide a 15% discount on ships and their parts.
EDDB database:
https://eddb.io/
Its like the traders' bible really helpful to find stations, commodities, trade routes anything really.
Elite Chat a chat channel where you can ask experienced players questions in real-time:
https://discordapp.com/channels/147037103434235904/147037103434235904
https://inara.cz/galaxy/
Another good overall database especially for engineering
I'm writing this because I often take extended breaks from ED to play other games and I constantly have to 'relearn' to play which is what I'm kinda doing at the moment just started playing again 2 weeks ago.
Hope this helps some.
