have you considered using a Starship Upgrade Requisition? It boosts your Tier 5 ship to near Tier 6 stats
T5U's are pretty decent. They don't have the number of consoles you have in a T6 (they have 10, Most T6's have 11) and they don't have as good as stats but they are the closest thing you can get to a T6 without having a T6. They aren't cheap to a newb, either, but they are cheaper than any form of T6. And then, in ascending cost, there are Fleet T6's, and then Zen store ones, and then Auction house ones. Zen store ships being the only ships that are Bind to Account, not Bind to Character.
Thing is, can you upgrade your ship? Can all T5's become T5U's? I don't think so. Only 1 purchasable one I have is T5-U upgradeable (I upgraded it when I was not super EC poor, it was worth it) and the free T5 you get as you level up I don't think is T5-U upgradeable, either. I hope I'm wrong!
Last I checked you could equip any level of gear, Mark XIV included to any tier ship, I remember running content in a t1 ship equipped with endgame gear as a challenge. We did a t1 and t2 only CCA and won.
I was going to mention Upping your Marks..
Mark XIV weapons are kinda a lot better than Mk XII or anything below.. It's a no-brainer upgrade. Experimental upgrade kits are good for Mark upgrading as far as ones that cost you Dil to use. And then there's the Rom upgrade kits you get from Admiralty and those Event ones I forget the name of atm - neither of those cost dil to use and add a lot of research points towards a Mark upgrade. I upgrade Weapons to MK XIV before anything else. Also, it's a good idea in the beginning, when Mark upgrades are super expensive to you, to take advantage of Double Research weekends. So you spend half as much.
It's worth re-mentioning that MK upgrading is expensive no matter how you do it. So, be relatively sure you're happy with what you have before you upgrade. I didn't go from MK XII to XiV for a lonng time but I do it asap, now.
Also, kinda like Zee is saying, there are lots of things that make a tough ship - not just the ship. Trait choices make a big difference as well as your equipment which includes what MK it is at (especially weapons), your Active Space Duty Doffs and.... the stuff already written up there and stuff not mentioned yet - all makes a noticeable difference.
While you are busy figuring out all the things you can do to kit out your T6, you're putting back some Dil to buy one, hopefully. It will likely take you about as long to figure out how to properly kit a T6 as it will to save for one.
Honestly, don't be in a hurry. The better you kit out your T5 and the more you learn about the game before you finally get your First t6, the happier you will be with that First t6. Meanwhile, save. Everytime you run a Normal queue - it gives you like 480 dil and Anyone can do Normals. If you can't, you can be carried... and likely no one will notice.. Every time you run a queue you get marks, too - Hourlies, Dailies, and Trading in 500 marks for 5,000 zen are all ways you can use the Rep system, (which you should be progressing in, anyway!) to gain easy marks/dil/Space Combat practice. Do them daily and you'll not only get the Traits you need but the Dil you need AND the Practice you need.
You have a lot to chew on. I just hope playing the console version of the game isn't what kills it for you. STO seems very keyboardy and Very 1,000 interface windowsy. [quote
My traits are - and, for the most part, always have been - all set to the most defensive things I can set them to: Defense, Resistance, +Max HP, +Max Shields, etc. My Engineering Consoles are likewise defensively-oriented. I usually set my power levels to emphasize shields, followed by weapons. I just feel... fragile... for some reason.
You get more Traits as you level in the Rep system. Way better ones. (Is there anything else that gives new Traits as you level, anyone?) You can see what they are in the... Status? window. The window that shows what you get from the Rep system for every tier you attain.