I have a few ships with codenames, but they are just for toying around with in Conn.
My "real" ships have 5.88, 6.67 and 8.33 refire guns no slower than 700 m/s. The "best" guns I have tried have been the civilian ones (flashpoints, purplies, garands). My favorite ship is a civilian one as well.
All in all, a new player doesn't need anything else than 25 million credits worth of ship, armor and guns to compete with top-tier PVP'ers. Disco is not like an MMO with different levels and such, and if you die you can mostly blame your own lack of skill, rather than the gear your opponent is using (except for missiles/torps and a few bugged shield bubbles, but that's a whole different discussion).