Howzit Ladies and Gents
I've literally just got my copy of STO. It's installed, patched etc but I'll only be able to log on after work....
My question though.... How long does it take to save up the ~260 000 credits needed to buy the larger ships? I want to fly escourt baby SOOOOON BUT, I want to have to work for it

A secodary question would be are ships priced right? Is it too easy to save up for your ship of choice
Comments
You get a free upgrade (coin) every time you level in rank. If you wish to try another ship at your current rank you will need to buy with with credits. Its not to hard as you will get drops that you can sell on the exchange or NPC them
Why should they be harder to attain? you need the new ships and if the game needs money sinks this is probably not the place to do it.
nope 1 free per rank, the others its up to you. I would try each build with the correct ship that designed for it
Why? You get a new rank so you get a new ship. You need that new ship to continue. There is no way you'll be able to get through the game using a Light Cruiser (the first ship you get). Its not like you can buy one of every ship, you are limited to I believe 8 ships. So you can get all cruisers, or all escorts, or all science and still have a few empty slots if you want to try other ships or buy the Runabout.
There is no need to make it harder.
You have to kinda look at it in the perspective of the setting though.
Technically we arent BUYING the ships, we are being assigned them, because we are part of an organisation. the ships aren't technically ours, they are Starfleets.
Each new Rank Lt, Lt Cmdr, Cmdr, Captn, RAdmr we get a ship plaque token for a new ship of that tier. The only ships we have to pay for are any EXTRAs we want...and even then the energy credits represent more an allocation of resources to obtain the ship, rather than the use of an actual currency..were Feds not Ferengi
Bare in mind too you only have a SET number of ships you can onw, so dont feel the need to buy every ship at every tier or you will not have space for a new one at higher ranks.