4Game

I don't play much, maybe a few hrs a week at most. I don't have any engineering yet, I have about $320 million and

Sidewinder

viper mk3

dbx explorer

Python

I would like to start throwing some engineering into the mix to add a bit of direction to my sessions with a very long term goal of having a fully engineered small medium and large ship.

What engineering would I see the biggest benefits from for least amount of time spent?
Would it be worth buying a different ship to start? Ideally I'd like to have ships that I have a decent chance of being able to flee and not get destroyed by other players if I end up in a Pvp Scenario. So far I play always in Solo but want to move into open more. I have dabbled in most aspects of game play so far.

Thanks