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It's just too easy to blame it on a paywall. It's not the ships that are lacking, it's your (lack of) management of them.
The guy with 6k hours is bragging about his stats? Oh dear. That's just too precious.
In case you don't know (seems you might think it does), but....
It really isn't the Ship or it being a T6 that matters or is as important...
I've seen lots and lots ships both Fed and KDF that were T6, only to learn they are as fail as a soup sandwich, only dealing the amount of damage a 10 year might do while wearing an EVA suit and only armed with a slingshot and bag of marbles..
That it what/how your toon's skill tree is done.. and what the weapons/consoles you are using + what your ship's deflector/engine/shield/warp-core, and slotted traits you're using..
I.E. What the upgraded Mk levels, grade quality they are, plus the most important gear quirk (reason you pick this set over that etc), the different set bonuses they give to your toon, ship, ship's weapons and/or capt/boff skills...
You can rant and rage quitting STO, or take the time to learn some simple STO game mechanics while making a few new friends in game...
My main character I mostly play is an Alien KDF Tactical, i've played it and only it since March 2010.. Not using my 1st Fed toon once it hit the required level before I could make and play as KDF.. Although, just this Feb I did started using my old Fed toon again (which I haven't a clue how I got that character to where it was and the level it was at with the setting it used or the gear it had (drugs are bad um-kay)
Anywho, My KDF toon is still Driving/using a ship that didn't cost any Real money or zen.. Just me being in a fleet that had the upgraded assets and saving up cost to buy a T6 Fleet Mogh..
(Once in blue moon I might bring out my Husnock for a day or three, and on Sundays I also might take my Krenim Warship out, but only allowed to drive it slow and on the driveway (A joke only a few will get)...
My suggestion, get yourself either a T5 Voth Bastion Flight-Deck Cruiser only costing you EC (they are hella cheap on the exhange) and the upgrade to T5U is free not needing a ship upgrade module (increased HP +1 console slot, etc etc) which as a T5U it becomes a really nice T5(U) that is better than many T6 ships..
Also the Ferengi D'Kora Marauder is cheap and a great ship costing only EC (see the suggested above T5 Voth cruiser as it's also a great T5 with a free upgrade to T5U (increased HP console slot etc etc)...
The fact is, enemies continue to scale up rapidly while you simply don't unless you fork over real money. That has to be one of the cheapest and dirtiest P2W game mechanics I've ever seen. They get you hooked, you get a feel for the game, and then they punish the hell out of you for not paying up. I'll probably just go back to Warframe where the got F2P right. I've even spent a fair amount of cash on it when I didn't even need too b/c I respect the devs. Cryptic isn't getting a single red cent though when they use tactics like this to milk players.
Now the only things/ships that might be (or could with a good lawyer) be defined as P2W are the very short and limited list of things that require Veteran Points .. I.E. Days of paid membership that an account has which ended when the game was bought and went F2P (they do offer the gold something something which gives 1k points if bought)
A P2W game, would be World of Tanks with their gold rounds/ammo, Cursed Online (Bless Offline now), 95% of all of EA games etc etc etc...
If I have to spend 4 months of solid grinding to get something that is practically essential to progress, it's P2W. Just like all those mobile games where you have to pay to be able to do anything without a 10 hour timer. Of course they are P2W because no sane person is going to play them otherwise. Your point about EA games being P2W indicates that you actually agree with me because none of their games that I'm aware of fit your definition of P2W. You can earn everything in game but it takes an eternity unless you pay up, even Battlefront 2 at launch was like this.
The point is, after level 40 you simply become weaker without paying up. Much weaker because everything else scales while you really don't. So they get you invested and then BAM! They hit you with a massive paywall that quickly becomes a near requirement if you want to continue playing and that's about as shady as it gets.
They absolutely should give you a T6 ship for free at level 50 just like they do every other 10 levels while most of the rest should be sold for a reasonable amount of dilithium Then it would be fair where paying money lets you get more ships faster but doesn't feel like a requirement. They'd still be able to make bank off of all the cosmetics and stuff. But no, they bungled it.
Oh, and I just looked up the ship you recommended and it costs 4M EC. Sorry, but when 4M is "hella cheap", you simply have no perspective of what it's like to be a new player as I'm sitting on about 1/10th of that. It just further proves my point that you either grind your ass off or you pony up. And then of course there's still a massive grind, but at least it wouldn't feel mandatory just to do the story missions.
...and yet, there are hundreds of players managing just fine. No doubt you'll convince yourself that they're all "whales" and people with no lives who don't mind the grind.
Well, no... if you have to PAY to get something that is essential to progress then maybe that'd be the case, but no amount of grinding equals "pay" to win. That aside, there's nothing at all that is "practically essential to progress". You clearly don't have any T6 ships and have built up the idea that they're somehow much more powerful than previous tiers. They're not.
Your issue is that you've been playing the old content they've made easier and jacked up the XP for in order to get people past it quickly and into their newer content.. but you've decided the mindless pew-pew of the early stuff is what the game "should" be. There's more to the game than having weapon power at 125 and turning autofire on all your weapons.
So, you can throw a tantrum and uninstall the game, or you can decide you want to learn to play STO beyond the mindless leveling stage, and either go read about how to make it happen on various sites, or post asking for help with your build and suggestions on improving your dps and survival.
It's like trying to attack level 65 stuff with MK VI weapons doesn't work or something....
Grinding 4 (solid) months? Might I ask for what? and could you define "grinding"? Meaning what and where are you "grinding" and for "what" are you getting from said grinding?
Most Mobile games/apps are Cash grabs/money sinks...
I once played the "FF XV A New Empire" when it came out, was fun until it became clear that without either spending RL-$$ or having 40+ guild members all sending millions and millions of Res just for a single building or tech upgrade you weren't gonna Tier 4 units, and it became very clear within 4 months to me it was more than just P2W, it was the biggest rip off i've seen in a game.. ATM, I'm only playing FF EXVIUS, Fallout Shelter, and Legends an Elder Scrolls card game (i'm just getting daily sign-in rewards for 2 or 3 months) on my Samsung Cell and Tablet (plus a few cracked APK games)..
So.. Anywho, EA's handling of Battlefront 1&2 are(were) P2W Look at EA's BF1 at launch.. The DL-44 pistol people got with a pre-order of the game, etc was hella OP and better for the longest time than anything else.. The "season pass scam BS Offers"... and with BF2 the BS with heroes they tried to pull getting Disney to step in and telling EA "Nope!, No, Not that Sh!t again or take the licence/rights away"
Last EA product i've bought was Medal of Honor: Allied Assault back in 2002 i think. (EA is at the top of my boycott list with Epic games in 2nd place).. I miss studios like Westwood and Interplay (the Fallout Interplay)
As for getting weaker after lvl40.. I've never noticed anything but a once in a blue moon a Science Ship might get my HP down low enough getting me to use Hull patch and other defensive skills/actions backing out of the center of the fur ball of targets.. But if you know what damage types you will be up against, then you should prepare ahead for making yourself more tankie Vs that damage type..
Looking back, I think STO was at its hardest and its best back in Mid 2011 after they revamped the Borg allowing them adapt to player damage, changing fights with the Borg felt like you were fighting them (not the lobotomized blind zombies we currently have)..
Yes, you do have to move up to any T6 ship that you can get. But you Don't have to pay real money for a ship from the store. Yes, you do have to improve your ship gear to play some of the content.
You can get 13 ship modules to buy 2 or more fleet T6 ship, by completing the 13 reputations. You can get a t6 ship at each special event, the next one is Summer. You can get a t6 ship from the Store by participating in the Featured TFOs, but you should have already started that the last Featured TFO. You can grind for dilithium and sell it for zen points to eventually buy a T6 ship. Sometimes, Cryptic will give away ships in the store or send codes in email to redeem in store.
The episode rewards have ship gear and weapons you need to improve your builds.
If you compare the hull points for the free leveling ships vs similar t6 ships, the t6 ship will have more hull points. T6 ships have better boff seating, mastery traits, epic console.
Read here > https://sto.gamepedia.com/Playable_starship
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Reputation_System
https://sto.gamepedia.com/List_of_missions
As for Free T6 ships at level 50, well at lvl50 you can buy T6 ships, which if you are in a fleet with holdings upgraded to the required Tier levels, you can get a Free T6 Fleet ship..
You can earn 1 free Fleet Ship Module from each Rep faction (13 total now) for free
Granted you have to reach Tier 6 in that Rep Faction..
But the most costly T6 Fleet ship (if you haven't bought Lower tier of that class before), costs only 5 Fleet Ship Modules, 20k Fleet Credits, and 1 Fleet Ship Provision (1 is used from fleet holding assets)..
Fleet T6 ships lack a Starship Trait, but have +1 Console slot, more HP, and tends to have other slightly higher base stats from the Zen/non-fleet version (differs from ship types and Fed or KDF)..
Since I don't know what ship, gear, weapons etc etc you have and such, i'll just give a broad and rather basic bit of advice to you and any others that might stumble upon this thread..
But again, It's not so much as the ship you're using but it's in and on said ship.. Meaning what the 4 core ship gear items you're using and the set bonus bonuses they give, then picking weapon types that work best for whatever ship and/or playstyle you are using..
Picking a set of either beams or cannons.. That have the same damage type on all of your weapons not counting the Kinetic cutting beam if you use it for the 2 piece set..
Very important to not mix different damage types, like having Plasma beams/cannons with phaser something and single Polaron whatever you found from wherever)...with Consoles that compliment your weapons (addded damage) and/or your ship/playstyle (EPS flow, EPG for Sci damage, Siphon or leech added sub system power levels) you are using, the Mk level, quality of said gear (very rare, Ultra Rare, epic)..
Anywho, 4 Million isn't that much, and not if you are comparing it to a T5 ship that gets a free T5U upgrade... I might blow 2 to 10 million buying up every common Doff listed for 25k or less, if happen to log into the game and see i've sold 1 or 3 of my listed items.. To then dump them into Fleet/Armada projects that need them making fleet credits too then hoard in a big pile (in my head I can envision the FC stack) next to my useless pile of GPL
I make lots of EC by crafting/upgrading weapons/gear.. I do miss the old memory alpha, and the times before re-engineering items got patched into STO (the stats you rolled when you crafted and upgraded is what you got and was stuck with, Blood sacrifices to the RNG gods for not rolling an Acc or CritH!)
Crafted Anti-proton without a [Pen] stat (but had a +120% CritD)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1640315156
And what is currently in high demand are Sensor-Linked Phaser and Disruptor DHC sets
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1758012812
I have a phaser DHC and single Beam set for my Fed toon and disruptor DHC set for my KDF (which the RNG gods weren't nice when opened disco weapon boxes giving me everything but Sensor-linked DHC 80% of the time) with some extras for either a sidebar to hotswap if an encounter calls for it, or list on the exchange for EC (the OCD DPS obsessed players gladly pay top EC for them if they have the stats they want on them (them not having to spend 400 to 6k+ dilithium rerolling stats Dil and Salvage costs based on RNG's favor/disfavor..
Disco linked RNG mystery weapon boxes sell for around 2 million each
Running 50-60 content on a new character that doesn't get outside help (like gear influx from experienced alts) was iffy before, because you leveled so much faster than you got gear required to perform well at the new level. Still, iffy, but not impossible.
Now, the level 65 cap increase broke the new player experience to hell and then some. It is quite literally impossible for someone new (without the benefit of account reclaims, tac consoles provided by their old crafter characters, etc.) to get the gear required for meaningful story play at level 65 while leveling to 65. It really, really is.
If Cryptic weren't greedy bastards hoping new players will work around that by buying stuff and/or stupid idiots who simply didn't think things through, they'd hand out a free Mk XII green everything pack at 61. Which would still leave new, inexperienced players finding themselves biting off more than they can chew on normal at 65 at times.
But those times would be rare enough, and generally based on the players actually doing it wrong, that it would actually be reasonable to dismiss P2W complaints outright. But right now, you vets doing that? Yall are just making inconsiderate fools of yourselves.
As for you, OP, you do get a free T5U ship at level 61, which if you pick the right one for your playstyle is all you actually need by way of ship. So you are actually barking up the wrong tree when you claim having to buy a ship is the issue. It's not.
The issue is gear, and the fact that as a new player leveling you don't actually have a couple of million EC to offset the fact Cryptic didn't make sure new players would find enough level 65 ready gear on their way to level 65.
That problem in your case was probably compounded by the double XP penalty last weekend, which presumably had you outleveling your gear even faster. (The alt I got to level 65 last weekend found a grand total of one useful tactical console above Mk IV, but unlike an actual new player without account reclaims and powerful alts, I can fix that problem in a blink.)
The free solution, by the way, is generally to find a good, newbie friendly fleet that actually understands there actually are issues with STO's progression. They'll probably just dump a couple of Mk XII preferred energy type tactical consoles on you, because for someone that actually thought about their build, that's usually (almost) all it takes to get back to killing them before they kill you.