Some basic experience was gathered already during fulfilling first few missions, missions when I used the small and basic sidewinder ship for small private transporting (read as "smuggling deliveries") missions. But this ship started to be too small for me, in my pocket were almost whopping half million credits_ 
... just came a time to visit some shipyard which were spotted on more already visited bases, and do there some shopping. This was really exciting when I confirmed a purchase and on landing pad was delivered my new ship, the Cobra_Mk3. Now only add some equipment and ... ohh 
, only a first look on the equipment dealer prices list was very teaching - it looks like that made my ship kitted only little better will take some time.
Continuation of small deliveries, when was due significantly bigger
cobra's cargo hold possible accept more contracts at once, filled my pockets considerably faster, and my ship slowly started look as planned. There were still many possibilities for further improvements, but into my mind was slowly but still stronger and stronger coming the urge to do something more "exciting" ... ship had equipped some nice guns already ... could be a good time for theirs testing. So I launched from the dock and left the base "no fire" zone (
gathered already some experience what will happen when I open fire close to station ... ). Finally, weapons hardpoints were deployed when ... all systems on my ship suddenly collapsed and into my pilot mask started flow emergency backups of
oxygen. Don't panic was really hard, especially if the time remaining to deplete backup
oxygen was quickly going down ... where only is this dam*** ship manual?!? In a brief flash of genius has emerged the idea to check a Right HUD panel where can be set ship modules energy preferences. Of course everything was there set equally as "1" ... few quick clicks and ... it was really a relief when ship systems came back on-line ... ufff, survived first weapon deploying, great
. After this it needed only a short time before I installed on my ship the second best power plant available and learned how important is to know how to maintain my ship energy needs.
I just have checked the bulletin board for some interesting (income) delivery mission, when I saw there one icon (mercenary mission), which I so far purposely avoided. I looked deeper into contract for details, and there was surprisingly only a very simple request to visit certain system and destroy there at least one pirate ship .... should be not so hard! (yea, it was little bit naive thought ...) OK, ship was armed, energy sufficient, everything ready (except pilot ) for action. After was reached mission system I set a course to one from bases and watched symbols appearing on my canopy HUD ... ahh, there it is! ... Circle for USS - Unidentified Signal Source appeared and I set my ship course right there. SuperCruise was ended in time, FSD was cooling down, and on radar appeared few symbols, my KVS_scanner was activated but ... suddenly my ship shield started flickering and not only one, but five radar ships-symbols changed to Red - some Cobras and Vultures ... boost, boost ... forget totally what else to do better (... like use silent running for example ), but I was lucky this time. Only one from red symbols stayed in touch, but quite far from his guns range. Radar check showed a Cobra_mk3 (investment to A grade sensors maybe was not as big money wasting ...). I slowly pressed "Assist off" button and turned my ship by 180°. Still only one target was showing up on the radar ... time for some smaller risk, weapons hardpoints were deployed and soon after fight started. Alone pirate ship (same type as I had) was manageable threat. In the end pirate ship have exploded and I received a nice message about 15k credits bounty waiting for me on bases security office. This was really much more fun as trading ... time to look more deeply on different occasions, how to make a legal income from fighting 
More different areas which I before ignored during travel were visited, extraction sites, small signal sources etc. Rumours about so called conflict zones where different factions fights were heard. There it looks exists much more options what to do and how, and I'm still only on a start ...
