An update...
To clarify what I meant by "low tier early game", I was thinking of maintaining a small fleet mostly composed of frigates, a destroyer, and a few support ships. It has expanded a bit beyond my initial plan. Obviously it was limiting and required me to pick battles and to "sneak around" to avoid engagements with larger fleets.
The responses have pretty much summed up what I have been doing. I started with a Wolf and Shepherd. From there I worked on some system bounties. Then I took some missions transporting goods. Followed by some more system bounties. This led to a profiteering hustle which involved selling goods to a pirate station and then fighting them in the same system because of course they were raiding and there was a system bounty. This involved some sneaking around a bit to get the station to sell the goods. A couple of times I was caught wiped (thank you oh lord of the save scum). Eventually this ended when I was locked out of the station for engaging and destroying a fleet too close to the station. The reputation hit for failing the mission was not a problem as the faction relation with the pirates was already at 'vengeful'. Not a big loss. Moved to another system with an abandoned station where I started stockpiling weapons and items. Took on a few more system bounties and defended a neutral station from raiding pirates. By this time my account is full of credits, almost 2 million cr. Maybe chump change to some but for me and my officers, we were rolling. It was at this time I saw a pristine Medusa at market and did not buy it. After which I bought another Buffalo and a few more Shepherds and tried my luck at exploring.
My fleet for most of this has been made up of four (4) Wolfs, two (2) SO Hammerheads (1 D-mod), a Shepherd, D-Mod Buffalo, and a Mule. The main combat force has been the Wolfs and Hammerheads. Off and on I have also tried to use two (2) additional escort kitted Wolfs (Wolves?) and a Condor with two (2) Wasp wings. The primary reason for this was to counter other fighters as none of my combat ships used PD. Over the course of this play through, I have scummed a few times when wiped or caught off guard by something I was unaware of (kited into fighting a station by a smallish fleet...). But overall have only lost a few Wolf ships and the Condor went down once too. I am not a fan of that brick.
Ambition creep appears to be setting in. I want to own a colony. I think I am going to need a larger stronger fleet if my colony gets too big. With that said, I have a few questions. Can I establish a colony and install a few upgrades to get it operational (producing raw materials, I guess?) and it be viable. By viable, I mean somewhat profitable?
I also want to attack some of these stations that are raiding some of these systems. I tried once and quickly realized I was not strong enough to even think about attacking it. So I put that off. I am assuming I am going to need a cruiser, two?
BTW, I pilot one of the Wolf ships. Ion Pulsar, Ion Cannon, and (2) Atropos-class Torpedo Racks. Hull mods include Hardened Subsystems and Expanded Missile Rack.