You can complete the PVE quickstart path towards PVP with a minimal set of ship builds: TLDR: What are the 'must have' PVE ship builds? UPDATE: JULY 18: Added Passenger and Rescue archetypes.
PVE ship builds are used for tasks like farming materials by jumping around quickly with an SRV and collectors, blowing up bounty hunted pirates, or anti-xeno Thargoid hunting.