Your early focus for empire should be EP, Vader, Thrawn, TFP and Tarkin. All are either free with Phoenix, you mostly unlock free from achievement(and can finish down the road from fleet), or have really great DS ships.
About the credits/bounty hunter thing... you might not have a Credit crunch now, but you eventually WILL regardless. The sooner you get started on them the longer until you hit that point. Fett, STHan, Lando IG88 and whoever are fairly easy farms will fill quotas for different events, and don’t require a ton of gear to knock out Credit Heist/Droid Smuggling. Don’t neglect them for too long.
