I pretty new to the game (Just level 4) I wanted to know how many BO's do you get & need (I am a Tac)
And how many shps can you have by the time you are Vice Admiral?

As you level up you get more Bridge Officers then you need.

You can only have a maximum of 10 once you reach Rear Admiral. As you rank up you unlock more Bridge Officer slots. You can also buy 2 additional Bridge Officer Slots through the C-Store. You really only need 5 Bridge Officers. You can use 5 on your ship, and 4 out of those as your away team. It is common practice to use 5 on your ship and 4 different ones as your away team for a total of 9, leaving you with 1 extra.

I believe the maximum number of ships is 8 or 9. I have 8 on my main character. You can also buy additional slots through the C-Store.

You get 4 BO commission slots to begin with. For each rank you achieve, you get 2 more commission BO slots.And you 'll be able to keep up to 12 BO Candidates.These BOs are in a holding area on your Assignments tab. You'll be gaining many BOs are your level up. For ever level ending in 0,2,4,6, or 9, you will get a random BO as a reward (These will be better BOs as you level up. At Lt Commander , you get Uncommon (Green) quality BOs Candidates. At Commander, they change to Rare (Blue). And at Admiral, they change to Ultra-Rare (Purple). Those better Bo Candidates have Rare verion of BO Abilities (III) and superior traits. These BO Candidates, you can keep, trade, sell, etc.

As to types, it all depends on what you want. For a beginner, I would suggest keeping a general balance between all 3 branches (including your captain) for ground missions. For ships, it depends on what who type that you choose (Escort, Science, or Cruiser).

As you level up you find you hve more Comissioned Officer slots then you need. This allows you to have extra BOs so you can specialize ship staffing or away teams depending on the need. For example, when fighting Borg in space, I have a set of BOs that can deal with Borg's annoying abiltiies.

good question. I have been playing so long and bought so many slots I have like 12 ships and 22 BOffs on my main.

Good info here but there's a question left hanging...is there a cap to how many ships you can keep per character in the hangar?

As far as I know there is not. You can keep buying more slots through the C-Store. The only real limit is the number of ships that are in the game.

The upper limit is probably way more than a player would want to spend on extra ship slots.

What's the ship slot limit without C-Store slot upgrades? Does it increase per rank?

The base limit is 8, IIRC. 6 to cover each rank of your captain as you advance: Lt through VA and 2 extra slots. You can also delete older ships to make room.

This should help you.

As should this.

Edit: Never mind, didn't read. But it should help with Bridge Officers.