The tutorials are good for getting a nice collection of basic ships, and doing the epic arc will get you a cruiser.

This is definately a game where you have to do a lot of reading though. I think I spent about 3 days reading tutorials before I even made my first character. Thankfully they put a web browser right inside the game interface (in case you don't have a spare monitor for a proper one), so you can put all the handy sites into the bookmarks list there.

Something else to know is that unlike WoW, you have a very good chance of getting help in the chat channels. There are dedicated newbie help channels manned by volunteers, and the NPC corp you start out in will have a lot of helpful players too.