Early game I tend to switch to the other system and chase down the independent fleets there, due to them being much less numerous, and they typically have the majority of their combat ships mothballed. Provided you can fight off the couple fighter wings and odd frigate they have its very rewarding, the spoils being more than enough to buy another frigate or upgrade to a destroyer after only one battle if you play your cards right.
The sheer quantity of the pirate fleets in the Corvus system does typically result in it being a bit of a game of chance early on, can you take out that small scout fleet, and get your burn speed back up before that carrier group catches you? Hmm decisions decisions. Once your fleet is large enough that the small to medium pirate groups run away from you it becomes much safer, particularly since a skilled player can defeat a pirate armada or carrier group with a single frigate or destroyer, thus saving the CR of the rest of the fleet.
Late game when playing vanilla I tend to just get inventive, defeat a pirate plunder fleet with an onslaught, but you're only allowed to fly backwards, that the game allows you the potential to be comically inventive later on is I feel one of its strongest supporting factors for continuous play, the game as it stands certainly has an inverse difficulty curve, early game is the hardest part with the difficulty then decreasing as you advance. In the final game that will surely be different, but for now playing smart is the way to go early game.
