So recently I have stated to realise why people love painting their little plastic ships! And I have got a few base paints from citadel and get a couple of brushes but I want to get something that gives me loads of options?

Why would you suggest?

Not sure I would call it a starter set but if you want a lot of options something like this maybe: http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/72-colors-_-3-brushes/family/18/87

Do you mean ship or paints?

For ships you can’t go wrong with a Most Wanted expansion. 3 ships with plenty of variant schemes to try and if you run them as Scum it won’t matter if they look a bit rough

i would recommend picking a color scheme before purchasing paints because buying every concievable color gets expensive

you will need a primer paint, your chosen colors, and ideally a wash to put on when you're done to bring out the detail.

Primer is cheap if you get matt auto primer, and citadel paints or Vallejo color paints are easy to find and inexpensive if you stick to the colors you need.

theres some great tutorials on youtube where people will show you what paints they use and then show them in use along with the final result

When I started painting a few months ago, I valued cost more than any other factor, thus my advice is going to be on how to do it cheaper. So far, I have been fine with Krylon spray primer, and paints I found at a department store. I do recommend if you are going to buy cheap paints, then you should splurge a little on a black, as the black paints at the department store are not quite as dark as Citadel's, and presumably, Vallejo's.

Having a color scheme in mind before starting does help, so if you are confident in your mixing capabilities, you can just buy red/blue/yellow/black/white, and keep a notebook of your mix ratios to replicate colors later.

I'm going to echo some of the earlier comments, but ships Wise, it really is hard to do better than Most Wanted. 3 ships for $40 USD MSRP is hard to beat. The 2 core sets are comparable, but I happen to not like repainting those ships.

These are the paints that I use. Not the polishes though...

-DD

A paint set like this should set you up nicely. And get some silver, gun metal, raw steel or similar.

Also, buy some Nuln Oil from Citatdel, a primer (I used a gray & a white Tamiya brand) and a clear coat/Matte sealer.

You can get away with cheapy brushes from Walmart or whatever, but I prefer to use better brushes than that. As long as you maintain them, they'll last you many years.

Oh, and don't overlook metallic sharpies for highlighting metal tubing, greeblies or other little details..