Welcome to the game, the only game ever that kept me occupied for more than a year so far and no end on the horizon.
It`s a great experience always renewing and bettering itself.
It`s great soloing it but becomes awesome as a community thing.
You find you have a lot of people here with experience who can answer your questions and are generalyl helpful.
Is it supposed to be a long time before you can upgrade your ship? I've done a number of missions now and don't seem to have any credits.
It's weird because last night I changed the look of my ship and it didn't charge me. Today when I log on, the ship doesn't look the same and then I don't have enough credits to change the look of the ship.
You get a new class of ships every 11 levels. You can also change the look of your ships at Earth Space Dock but those changes are cosmetic.