so if i look into what materials i need for this stuff, it seems that will take forever. i probably just have to get kind of everything there is in the game over time...
Going from no engineering to any fully engineered ship will take some time, yes, and you will retain your sanity with more ease if you can view it as a long term goal.
I recently started another account with the free Epic thing, and this is the path I took. Felicity grants an invite with exploration rank, and requires a Meta-alloy to unlock. You can buy a Meta-alloy in Maia system, it is a ways away. I installed a fuel scoop and set a course for Maia, honking every system and doing a FSS in those that showed unexplored on bodies. I also hit the nav beacon in every populated system on this journey then jumped into super cruise and checked for any High Grade Emissions. By the time I traveled to Maia, then to Deciat, I easily had the exploration rank for the invite, and had the Meta-alloy needed for the unlock, along with some mats to start engineering with.
Other engineers of importance to me out of the gates would be the Dweller (PD+at least G3 of all lasers), Prof Palin (G5 Thrusters), Lei Chung & Selene Jean to cover shields/hulls/hrp, Todd the blaster for MCs, rails, Hera Tani for Power Plant if you need G5 on it or Marco Quint. Once you get rolling on one, they kind of start to care of themselves so far as invites.
SO far as materials, make a habit of at least some times checking systems for High Grade Emissions, maybe even encoded for a while. Scoop mats after combat while your shields are building back up, always take material rewards from missions over credits. When in supercruise just get in the habit of scrolling through ships in front of you with whatever keybind for "next ship" or "next ally" or whatever it is, that way you still keep your destination targeted (hit next hostile to clear ship you have targeted while keeping destination targeted as well). This will passively start to fill up your encoded mats. Space installations, with the right limpets, can net you a lot of encoded materials pretty quickly as well from their data points. So far as raw mats, you are just going to have to get some SRV time under your belt.
Grade three are significant upgrades and can be done relatively easy while unlocking different engineers, I would personally set that as more of a longer term goal, pin recipes you need to complete on your ship, then as you get mats you can remotely top them off to Grade 5.
Use material traders as well, don't be afraid to trade down the more easily obtained high grade materials to populate lower grade inventories you are in need of. Credits are easy and a joke currency, if you are jumping into engineering now, view materials as giant piles of wealth of you can't ignore or leave behind.
