Game start, I get a shuttle. Yes, a shuttle - I always answer "did something else" so I can spend points where I want, and that leaves me with Hound or Shuttle as my starting options. Hound doesn't have shields. And the shuttle has a skeleton crew of one - buy a single veteran or elite crew, and suddenly your shuttle is that much stronger. Initial skill selection, I go for combat aptitude with +3 helmsmanship skill; the extra speed isn't much, but it's useful, and that's a skill I'll always want later.
You can't take hounds in a shuttle - they've got too much range and speed and will run away before you can kill them - but you can take a lasher or a buffalo II, even if they come with a wing of fighters. Don't attack fleets with more than one frigate + one fighter squadron, though, and especially don't attack hound + anything else.
Also, the shuttle can carry a *lot* of spare crew & marines - and even if you take massive hull damage, you can only lose one crew per fight. Battle until you capture something or can afford to buy some support - I prefer a Vigilance with LRMs and a heavy blaster (or mining blaster if that's what the store has) - invest in vents on it.
Put further aptitude points into tech up to level five - you want more ordnance points and better auto-aim, and especially the range boost from gunnery implants level five.
And then, when you've got say 40k in total funds (including what you'd gain from selling your frigates), go buy an Apogee. Give it 2x heavy blaster, dedicated targeting core, 30 vents, 2x burst PD laser, unstable injector, and whatever else you feel like. And now you can take on any pirate fleet (though some of the larger ones may be a bit tricky - save before engaging until you're sure you know what you're doing). Invest further aptitude points into combat skills - see my post
here for some thoughts on what skills you want and possible final builds.
...And if you want more of a fleet than just one Apogee, I suggest designing any supporting vessel variants to focus on survival; you don't need them to kill things, just keep stuff busy or hold nav nodes that you aren't near.