Smuggler Archive

I just finished slicing 4 and spicing 4 over the weekend. Since I tend to keep myself low on credits (funny how my spnding habits are similar to my RL spending attitude) I sliced a lot of mission terminals just for the money. Never used clamps, but I did make a lot of FANs for terminals. A) it close to guarantees that you'll succeed, and B) it gives you that general crafting XP you were looking for. By the time I hit Slicing 3 i worked all the way up the engineering tree and qualified for the novice crafting professions.
Anytime I missed a slice on a terminal, while waiting for the timer to reset, i just ran my slicing macro (see the "Guide to Spices" in the Important Links stickied at top.)

If you find a shop selling clamps cheap, buy every single crate you can afford. Much better than using up a few crates, going back and finding the vendor empty. On Tarquinas that tended to be a problem as it's a rather small server.

Basically, be efficient. If you have some down time between one activity or another, use it to slice a nearby terminal, a few weapons in a crate or craft spice, FANs, kinves. Especially craft those latter two if you're doing a crafting profession in addition. While you may waste some time with your slicing (i.e. will take 1/4 more slices on average) you'll make up for it by concurrently gaining crafting XP.