Yes level 38 is the highest level you can get without mods
And before you want to buy a good ship from a certain faction your rep has be be good or neutral with them
If you want a faction who are your enemy to be your friend you can try to bribe them on a station or you can kill the enemies of them like the bounty hunters.

Of course, you can still take missions from various people in bars.

38 is the maximum level, but you can continue to increase your money up to $999,999,999

An easy way to becoms friendly with most factions in Vanilla FL is to go to Ouray base in Colorado and slaughter xenos.

But if you do that, mind your Zoner rep and remember to top it up with bribes every now and then. Killing Xenos slowly decreases your Zoner rep.

Level 38 is not the maximum level if you install the Official 1.01 patch from Microsoft, then it increases the maximum level to 87.

if your lazy*heh hum* you just change the justice into a 999,999,999 dollar gun, after buying 4 of them

Or you could just hack yourself max money. Tis easier.

thanks for your replyes i didn`t think there will be so many...
i am not yet interested in using cheats althought i have donloaded many cheats and patches ( unlimited missiles and other stuff like that and 999,999,999$
i have discovered almost all the nav map still have do go and discover omega 5, 11 , 41 where i have encountered very hostile forces it`s so cool when you jump throught a gate and on the other side 5-10 hostile ship are waiting )) i have read some helpfull things like it`s good to have weaponds with the same speed or fire rate but i don`t have that right now but i will try this too... but i haven`t manage to kill all the enemies in that systems with my weaponds ...so i haven`t yet discoveret omnicron gamma and theta and the two unknown systems .
and i haven`t played multiplayer but this will be the first thing i`ll do when i return home from this hollyday - next week.
i have downloaded some MOD`s from this cool website of yours and i hope i`ll like it
till` we meet in space , i salute you

Romania`s top pilots guild,
cpt. Cristian Yoyoboy