My 2 cents.
Give the players the ship they want. If it’s an Akira so be it, if you think they are too young give them a Veteran captain that will be killed on session 0 or 1 and make the player number one t he Captain. You also have your next scenario an Admiral inspection to make the acting captain become the Captain.
They will invest in their ship they need to like it.
Unless you want to play the career event “ship destroyed” or if they had no luck or made errors and their ship is destroyed in a mission I tend to not change ships during play, it’s like losing a friend, the ship has gained traits, maybe talents (or at least some talent swaps).
Also be sure that the next update of the ship is in 1-2 years (and not 10) and you got another scenario. A ship update and of course some malfunctions
Since this thread started we now have a vessel that fits right in to the original request: the California!
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Cali class is what I immediately thought of. But then I wondered if they would be “important” enough to patrol the Neutral Zone (pirates and anomalies are fine, though).