I tend to use the 'kill and loot' philosophy. However, at one point in time, I wanted to try out the Leviathan, and then the Damocles. Looting 87,000,000 was gonna take too long. Lucky me, I am also explorative in nature. Buy Niobium on earth and sell at a station in the southern region of Dresden. This will cost you 160 per unit and you will sell for 2k per unit. So, every thousand slots in your cargo bay is 2 million credits in your pocket at each run. I would suggest the container ship. It is as slow as sin, but it has as much cargo space as most cap ships and is cheap as hell. The good news is that the AI seems to think you are some kind of cap ship, because I have had entire wings of pirates break and run as I dropped out of the trade lane. As soon as you can afford a cap ship, go with that, because then you will be a merchant to be reconed with.

Great! I'm a million miles from nowhere with a gung-ho iguana!
-Alex Rogan, The Last Starfighter