The Aurora is a good ship indeed. Many move from that up to either a version of the Avenger, such as the Avenger Titan or go further up to either a Cutlass or Freelancer line of ships for early on game play. In a friendly Org like TEST, there's several that would be happy to let you take their various ships out for a TEST drive so that you can see what sorts of ships you like most. This being said, I wouldn't worry about that just yet because CIG is working on a new flight model which will shift a lot of things with the various ships in how they handle.
The large & Capital class ships will definitely be requiring a crew to operate. Many of those will have several different roles to be taken care of. They might not release any ships larger than sub-Capital class until after they release SQ42. If so, at least those looking to learn roles as they are made to be working in game will have chances to give them a try on the larger ships that will be in game, such as the Reclaimer, Hammerhead, Carrack, 890J & hopefully Banu Merchantman.
