[brawndo_mom]

Thanks to all of you, I finally decided to get serious-er about ships, ground missions and the game in general, and promptly found a few more 'fun' things to do along the way - to wit: Tour The Galaxy. You probably all know the layout: you have 15 minutes to touch every sector block in your area of space (KDF and Fed are different, though they do overlap) and the reward is 450K of EC plus experience points.

1 week, several builds and a respec later I can now earn this fairly consistently.
The build is Risian corvette,Assimilated Subtraswarp MkXII (VR), a pair of Injector Assembly Engineering consoles (also Mk XII VR), an RCS Accelerator Mk XI Engineering (rare) console (probably would be better with a XII VR - but not at the price they wanted on the exchange!) Nothing else of note on the build.
Per notes I had found along the way, I did respec my Fed sci captain to max out the driver coil.
My route was somewhat circuitous (but works).
Starting in Pelia, move through the four sectors of Gamma Orionis, aiming for the transwarp conduit (you'll need to meander slightly to hit all four quadrants). Take the conduit to Risa sector, then head "south" to the Aldebaran sector of Eta Eridani, where you can catch the transwarp conduit to the Deferi sector. Immediately head 'north' to get the Raveh sector, then turn around and aim south for Beta Ursae. When you warp to Beta, you'll end up in the Cardassia Sector; turn west, and get the four sectors of the Zeta Andromedae Block,, ending in the Orias Sector. Warp to the Alpha Trianguli block, and slipstream west as far as possible; as soon as you hit Dorvan, head back toward Bajor sector, then aim 'east' for the Kalandra sector and the jump to Sirius Block.
You'll land in the Orion Sector; aim north to collect the Vulcan Sector, the turn west for the Regulus Block. Go straight south through all 3 sectors of Regulus, warp to Eta Eridani ( Donatu sector) then turn to move through the Archanis sector and north to Pi Canis., through the Narendra secot of Tau Dewa, then the Mylasa sector of Psi Velorum. Go west through the 3 sectors of Psi Velorum, then angle northwest to clip the corner of the Vendor Sector of Alpha Centauri. Angle through the SIerra sector, aiming for the center of Iota Pavonis, and loop through the four sectors there before heading south to catch the Teneebia Sector.
At this point you only have two sectors of Tau Dewa left, so I used the transwarp feature to jump to Tau Dewa, which if you're playing Fed, will land you in the Azure Sector. Hightail it to the Nimbus sector and you've got 450K in your assets.
Notes and advice: Clip corners. All you need to do is touch them to have them register (but if you're having lag issues, make sure they come off you list of sectors before you leave!) (I do check the list throughout the mission to see if I did get each sector.) If you're going to have a straight line run of at least 1.5 sectors (in the same block) use the slipstream. In Zeta Andromedae, Iota Pavonis and Orellius, you have to make U-turns; when this happens, I reduced my speed, made the turn, then accelerated again - but don't completely stop: 1/4 to 1/2 speed will allow you to make the turn relatively quickly and get back to speed.
Once I can afford the engines for my Rommie/KDF, I'll try to optimize a route for them.
If you've got a better route, share it!
And even if you don't have a ship that can 'make the Kessel run in under three parsecs', the rewards for the tour are darned good: 25K EC for each sector.
Thanks to Macrohead for the help in this!