P2W is a really complicated discussion in SC, and honestly it comes down to this.
1. You are 'pledging' to get ships. In other words, you're basically buying these ships to help fund out the game. Because there is no publisher, the money being made right now is all that matters, no sales quotas.
2. These ships are sold at a much cheaper price than what they will be in game. Tripling or more costs if $1=1,000 UEC (though it may go to $1=10,000 UEC or such). At launch, you will not be able to buy any more ships, but can buy UEC.
3. Buying ships now grants almost nothing unless it's an LTI sale or you just want these ships right now.
Okay, here's where P2W gets actually complicated.
If you balance against P2W, you damage the progression of the PU. Why? Because if a $25 Aurora won't be P2W'd to death by a Hornet, there will never be a reason to go to a Hornet. I don't mean that fully - skill will always matter, but there does have to be a very large semblance that you do not go fighting a Constellation in your 300i. Otherwise, the bigger, expensiver ships suffer terribly.
At the same time, there shouldn't be a 'king' or 'god' ship. Right now we think that'd be the F8 Lightning, followed by the A3G Vanguard.
I was one of many to trade their Super Hornets for a Vanguard, because we thought it was basically going to be a bigger, more expensive version of the SH that did away with the short ranges for high armour, range and firepower at the massive expense of profile and agility. We are now learning it's much more a hunter-killer designed to prey on Vanduul Void Bombers, Retaliators, Frigates, even Destroyers. But the heavy-fighter element has really been lost.
The closest to a 'god' ship we've had as an actually buyable ship is probably the Constellation, which used to actually have many of the features of the Idris Corvette (before THAT got turned into a full frigate) before getting nerfed. It remains absurdly powerful, though it's lost antimatter powerplants and TR6 engines. Nevertheless it also now has counters - like the beastly Vanguard.
Their answer to P2W is quite a great one. There will be roles for your ship, and if your ship is big or does a very complicated/niche/multicrew heavy role (Carrack, Reclaimer, Orion) it costs more. Also rarity factors into cost, rarer ships are more expensive, so a Khartu-Al you had to go out and buy on the border of Xi'an space is more expensive. Your ship has a given role and is a hard counter to another ship if we talk combat, but will also have its own hard counter. In other words, rock paper scissors. They give pretty good lore reasons for sales too, like frontier colony auctions for the Vanguard, surplus sales for the Idris, luxury yacht preorders on the 890 etc. etc. (There is a very strong sense of ship ownership). They rarely if ever sell military grade hardware - the Idris-M and Vanguard being the only exceptions.
In short, if you go into an asteroid field and get jumped by a Hornet, you better be skilled, because short range engagements are where the Hornet is king. But get away, or open the distance, or out turn him, and you'll likely win. A Constellation will beat a Hornet, but a Vanguard will beat a Connie, but a Hornet will beat a Vanguard. Rock, paper, scissors. Every ship has an 'ideal' engagement and target. Beyond that, even the bigger ships are balanced. A Hull E is a monstrously expensive project to run, the Javelin was sold without any systems. You need crew for bigger ships and some idea of where to go... stuff like that.