If you are talking Single Player Campaign then the starting ship is somewhat random as it is set by a BPV range in the .gf files. It can be changed so you get a larger ship to start if you like by going into Program Files, then Taldren Software Inc., then StarFleet Command, then Meta Assets, then Server Profiles, then Single Player, then Ship and changing to following fields to something bigger like I have here.
[StartingShip/Misc]
MinBPV = 100
MaxBPV = 150
This will make your starting ship a little more to your liking. Be sure to take the Ship file off of Read Only in order to save the changes. You can open it with NotePad