Your route to the top
Here's mine:
1. Do missions or beg until you have enough to buy a Rhino and fill it with Boron from Pittsburg or Manhattan
2. Run like panzzy to Stokes Mining Station in Leeds
3. Head back to Planet Leeds and buy Optronics; take them to New London
4. Buy Luxury Food and a Clydesdale, run back to Manhattan QUICKLY
5. Buy Boron and repeat from step 2 until you have ~ 500K creds
6. Buy a Barracuda, kit it out with decent weapons, and head to Freeport 4 in Magellan
7. Kill Bounty Hunters until the Lane Hackers, Outcasts and Liberty Rogues will let you land at Mactan base
8. Buy a Dromedary, kit it out, and run Gold back to Manhattan (or Cardamine if you're brave and lucky)
From here, if you want to stay with a Dromedary, that's great. Make some bribes to get the bounty hunters back to neutral, get an Adv. Sentinel shield from the fringes of Kusari space, kit yourself out with your favorite gun loadout, and explore the trade routes. It's the easiest way to make money. Or, you can continue on the route to a lvl 10 ship:
9. With the dromedary, do the boron/optronics/luxfood run (or any trade route you like) until you have as much money as you can stand not to spend (at least 2mil creds)
10. Empty your hold and head north from Leeds through Tau-31, -23, and -37 to reach Omicron Alpha. On the way, stop at Holman Outpost, Tau-23 gate construction site, Cali Base, Java Station, and Freeport 10. Make sure you've got advanced thrusters and adv. countermeasures, and that you've bribed the Zoners.
11. At Malta, buy your Sabre and the Adv. Brigandine shield. If you want to get weapons from the Outcasts (like the Kraken 2 or Wyrm 2), bribe em and run a mission from Malta or two until they're really friendly, then go to Omicron Beta for the Krakens.
12. Head to Omicron Theta via the jump hole. On your way out, try looting the wrecks around the unknown jump hole for a Ripper Mine launcher.
13.Stop at Freeport 9 for a while (buy an eagle here if you didn't want a Sabre), then take the jump hole to Omicron Gamma
14.At Crete, bribe the Corsairs and run a mission or two. The shipping companies will now not be too happy with you, unless you spread some bribes around (especially Republican Shipping and the IMG). Grab any weapons you want (The Tizona del Cid, Rapier turret, and the Salamanca Mk II and turret are all good choices). Make sure you've got some damaging guns (Buy a Titan if you don't like the other two we've covered), then head for the Unknown jump hole in Gamma.
15.Land at Planet Primus, talk to the guys there, then take off and start fighting Nomads. Don't go head to head on the first pass, and if you get in trouble, remember they don't have cruise disruptors. Don't use bots or batts unless it's an emergency. Collect nomad weapons from the fallen until you've got your loadout (mine is 4 Blasters with the Krakens in the lvl 9 slots. If you bought Wyrms, the Cannons will be a better match, or you can go for whatever floats your boat)
16.Skip this and the next step if you don't want a Sunslayer Torpedo launcher. Otherwise, head back through Omicron Gamma, to Omega-41, -11, to Dresden. Find the jump hole to Frankfurt.
17.Find Bruchsal Base northeast of Planet Holstein. Bribe the Bundschuh (this will really kill your rep with Rhineland shipping companies) and grab a Sunslayer. Head back to the border worlds.
18. From here, you're free. Make your way to Detroit Munitions if you want a pulse turret whose shots you can see, or keep your rapier (or salamanca) and head to Omega-5. Killing Red Hessians will probably be the best way to get most law-abiding factions back to friendly. The Bretonians will probably want you to kill Mollys. Liberty will want Outcasts squashed. If you don't care about the inner worlds anymore, take missions from the Corsairs or Outcasts vs. Bounty Hunters for the most money (Omega-41's Leon base also offers good money against the Hessians, if you can stand the constant repair costs). Or, you can turn pirate. Start another char, kit him out with a Dromedary, and switch back and forth to kill and haul. Really, nothing in the colonized worlds will be able to do much more than bleed on you now.
So, that's how I claw my way to the top. Anyone else care to share their favorite method for obtaining their favorite ship/loadout?