Pads that would be versatile, a great all around basic Pad, are not too aggressive, but can be combined with a variety of compounds and polishes to great effect and results would be the 5.5" White Lake Country Thinpro Pads. The degree of correction will then be varied by the Polishes you choose.
Like all other Free Wheeling D/A Machines, it is good to mark the Backing Plate with a Magic Marker, or Sharpie Pen, whichever would be easier to see, so you can keep tabs on Pad Rotation as you polish.
Without Pad rotation, correction efficiency drops to just about zero with such machines.
Regardless that free wheeling machines are pretty safe and foolproof, one should still be in the habit of not polishing directly on top of paint edges, for one, paint is commonly thinner in these areas. It is heat that can burn paint, and yes, a free wheeling D/A can generate a good deal of heat at the panel surface and pad. Same with Badges, and Trim, often today are nothing but Plastic Parts and can be damaged.
And it is heat that can and will shorten a Polishing Pad's life. it is one of the reasons that others have suggested getting a decent number of any particular pad that you'll commonly use.
Another reason, and even when cleaning a Pad on the fly with a Towel, or a Brush, Pads become loaded with excessive polishes, and as well contaminants and oxidation that are being removed with the polishing processes. Once they become loaded with polish products, and dirts, you're not going to be working optimally, nor cleanly.
Usually common, that after a couple-few panels, swap out the Pad in use for a fresh clean one, lightly re-prime the pad again, and continue on. 5-6 Pads for one vehicle is not excessive. As Mike Phillips once coined, "In a perfect world, one Panel, one Pad".
The less beating a pad gets, the longer it will last. Heat can be a Pad's biggest enemy. Try polishing a vehicle with just 1 or 2 pads, you'll likely be tossing them in the trash after, and as I'm sure you've found, pads are not cheap.
Good Pad Cleaning products do work a whole lot better than cheaper off the shelf All Purpose Cleaners to clean your Pads when done with them.
Masking Tapes of various widths are a very wise acquisition, and should be on hand whenever polishing with a D/A, to mask areas that you do not wish polishes on, or areas that could be prone to damage from the polishing processes. Trim, Rubber, Crevices where Headlights and Tail Lights meet the Body Panels, Door Handles, Badges and Emblems, etc.
Yes, masking is more work which you would do after paint decontamination processes, and just prior to polishing, but will save you work in that you're then not trying to remove staining, product residues loaded in crevices and cracks-seams, or crying because you damaged an emblem or badge-etc.
