Ugh… So, my goals for E:D H were (I thought) quite simple: get all the Imperial ships. There were (I thought) only three (turns out there are four, the Eagle has an Imperial variant, which I do now own), and while I knew full well that you needed particular Imperial ranks to get them, I didn’t really think beyond that point.

Problem #1 really is that they need Imperial ranks. Grinding rank is easy enough, as long as you have a suitable ship to grind ranks in, which I didn’t. Well, OK, that brings us to Problem #2; getting ships means cash, and when it gets down to the core, Problem #3 is that getting cash means trading and running missions.
And the trade grind is real… I’m following Masark’s Trading Guide from Reddit (first one I found), and I’m in the mid-tier hell that is step 6 – shuttling Imperial Slaves about in a Type-6 Transporter for just enough profit to make doing it worthwhile. The real killer here is the jump in costs. Getting to the Type-6 was somewhat logical and easy. Given my existing fleet/cash reserves, I just traded in a Viper Mk IV for a Cobra Mk III, then ran the rares circuit until I could trade in the Cobra for the Type-6 – only took me an evening or two of a few hours; easy, I thought.
Ha! “Grind a million credits” to grind 25+ million is worlds apart (pun intended). The rares circuit had “multiple worlds” going for it (even if you were visiting the same ports over and over). Looping slaves is the most deathly dull thing I’ve had to do in a game (and I made it to Elite in the original game on the Spectrum)…

BUT
I’m currently sitting on a pot of just over 15 million after looping mostly the whole weekend (eye strain while in the Rift is what stops me from doing it longer than I currently can), so it’s 3/5 down, 2/5 to go… I will get out of the Type-6 as soon as I possibly can (and jump in a Type-7 for double the profits per trip). And I do get missions occasionally, which helps break the monotony (and means I’m a Serf with the Empire, so yay! Go me!).
All this for some pretty ship models…

FYI, I’ve noticed that while I’m playing in VR, the image in the “desktop monitor” is atrociously small and I’d not inflict it on a Twitch audience. It’s been said before by others able to express it far better than me, but you really can’t explain what VR is like, you need to experience it for yourself.
(All images were taken from a Google Images search and I suspect/hope they are “official” FD images. If not, I thank the “photographers” but cannot easily name you. Copyrights will be respected throughout though, so a “please don’t use my image” with suitable provenance will result in the image being removed)