Want to throw out some thoughts as to what I see as the best route as of right now, if anyone wants to come in with opinions or possible optimisations then go ahead.

First part of the game I think is a rush to the beam laser - I'd start by immediately filling up with food at Lave (remainder being textiles - by the looks of things the stock/prices available initially at Lave are fixed), selling it all at Leesti, buying computers there, and then starting a run to and from Diso, returning with primarily beverages, food to fill the cargo bay if needed, then when more money is acquired you can look to switch to furs if they're on sale at less than 60 credits for greater profit margins

There's greater potential if you want to deal in illegal items, three things (robot slaves, rare species and firearms) will upgrade you to offender, which may result in greater attacks from bounty hunters but if you just defend with missiles you should be fine. Slaves work great on the very first run out of Diso if you can get them at under 10 credits, otherwise the profit percentage-wise is better on food and beverages work out about the same in terms of credits per ton. Firearms look to be pretty much comparable with computers for profitability so can be ignored, but rare species in the Leesti to Diso direction might be viable, although volatile. I wouldn't buy for more than about 45, but they'll frequently sell for 80-100 credits.

Defend with missiles early on. The pulse laser is pathetic and if you get into a fight it's quicker to just take the hit and missile the other guy immediately. Diso and Leesti are both pretty safe planets so it's fairly rare that you're forced into a fight which is the primary reason why I suggest this route to stay safe while you rush up to a beam laser.

You probably want to get the large cargo bay almost ASAP to maximise trading profits, but clearly you don't want to buy it at the first opportunity as it's pointless without the money to fill it. I would wait until you have enough cash to fill up with beverages, complete another round trip, then buy it - you'd be starting at about 500 credits, that'd get bumped up to about 600 at Leesti when you sell, which ought to be enough for 8 tons of computers which'll sell for around 750. You'd then get knocked down to 350 upon purchase, but you're back up to a comparable spot fairly quickly from there.

Then it's a case of rushing to the beam laser. It costs 1k but you get 400 back from trading in the existing pulse laser. That gives you some money to continue trading with it, but I'd wait until you're up to about 1300-1400 while docked at Leesti, then buy it and we move on to the second half of the run (new post)

Once you've got the beam laser, you want to switch out Diso for Riedquat - this is a much more dangerous system, but it has higher profits and will start to get you some kills. You'll probably run into enemy action most of the time when jumping towards the planet - packs of up to three enemies can normally be dealt with using just the laser, if you run into four, I'd immediately missile one of them, then run away so they're shooting at the aft shields and not the forward ones. A pack of four all shooting at the same place can drain your shields VERY quickly, so get them down to three (I've never seen a pack that size have ECM), then try to isolate a single one of the enemies, clean them out, and you can likely just use lasers directly on the other two from there.

Riedquat has the same trading situation as Diso in that it's an agricultural planet. Keep trading things back to Leesti and bring back more and more computers. I've not looked at market prices for what Riedquat has for sale in great detail, so there might be more efficient things to sell, I'd need to look at that a bit more.

Keep doing the same trade route until you're at the stage where you're able to buy the entire stock of computers. Once there, you can look to spend the excess on upgrades. First thing I'd look to buy is docking computers just because they're cheap, then an extra energy unit (basically provides better defences which is always useful), then just power through until you get up to 6k credits and can buy the military laser. Get that, with the refund buy an ECM system (not that the types of enemies you'll face going forwards use missiles that often, but better safe than sorry) and you may as well get fuel scoops to allow you to pick up cargo from destroyed ships.

Once you've got the military laser, just jump to Riedquat, keep doing short jumps not getting close to the space station, and kill anything that moves. Should be able to rush through to competent fairly quickly from there.

Small optimisations I use while in flight are to hit hyperspace immediately upon leaving the station then while you're waiting, up your speed, point away from the planet (no idea if either of these prevent the hyperspace, but in some versions they did), then move the cursor all the way right to quickly be able to start jumping towards the planet. Similarly, once in range of the space station, aim for a spot close to the station but in line with the planet, the entrance is always on that side. Keep going at full speed and only engage the docking computer (if you don't have the upgrade, always keep 5 credits spare to dock) when you're roughly in a line with the station and the planet. While you're coasting to that point, move your hyperspace point to the other planet on the local chart, and check commodity prices to see if anything is suddenly profitable. Also move the cursor to the trading option once docking computers are engaged to save a little bit of time.

Similarly, once in range of the space station, aim for a spot close to the station but in line with the planet, the entrance is always on that side. Keep going at full speed and only engage the docking computer (if you don't have the upgrade, always keep 5 credits spare to dock) when you're roughly in a line with the station and the planet. While you're coasting to that point, move your hyperspace point to the other planet on the local chart, and check commodity prices to see if anything is suddenly profitable. Also move the cursor to the trading option once docking computers are engaged to save a little bit of time.

Don't do this, just start the docking computer then hit fast forward to immediately dock. Why didn't anyone tell me this before?