Firstly, thanks for the replies.
Secondly, I really hate having to do cheesy crap to get the thing that I want.. this game has almost an RP feel to it, dont like screwing with that. (ya, Im wierd)
Anyways, the annoying side of that is ridiculous spawn tables. Thankfully its ment that most of my cheesy tactics have had to change - still havent seen an Aurora in this save, I did get lucky and found (and bought for the first time EVER) the Astral. But Ive only ever fought against the Hyperion.. Stupid, Evil, Awesome, little jerk. I also got lucky and snagged the Apogee - that is another godly ship, better than the Aurora in that beams got nurfed, and it has STUPID cargo capacity, so when you blow though an entire fleet with it, you actually get to take stuff home.
Started off running a pair of wolves, needed cargo, once i had augmented engines picked up a Buffilo as a dedicated hauller, after that for bigger fights added 2 (1 medium missile, 1 medium beam, omnishield, frigates.. those i found were decently fast support ships to help the other wolf stay alive and got me out of the solo ship mentality. it also ment that i had losses to deal with. but both ship hulls were fairly common. eventually I needed some beef, picked up a hammerhead and ran a few variants.. the 2 Heavy Machine Gun, 2 swarm missile, 4 tactical laser build is easily one of the best I found, with those stupid morters being a close second - the RoF active lets this ship SHRED most others; other perks were: its efficient on CR, has a HUGE (for a destroyer) cargo hold, and a decent Max Burn - buffed with augmented engines, it keeps up with the frigates and buffalo. also, I dont cry when it goes boom.
I kinda liked the boarding mechanic (
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/01/20/ship-recovery/ ) <-this will take some geting used too, but at the same time should fix the issue of 'rare' ships, as, we see them flying around INFINATELY more than we see them available to buy (and yes, commissions are hell, and it is annoying that you need them to buy from military, my relationship with tri-tachyon goes from 99 to 60 constantly.. WHO ARE THE 'KNIGHTS OF LUDD' they arent technically a faction as far as the 'Intel' screen is concerned, yet apparently i need to be hostile with them and Im not.. Im hostile to EVERYONE ELSE (thanks tri-tachyon for your constant wars) but ya.. more ship hulls to plunder I guess.
I have also noticed that, (and I have not been save-loading a lot), having played to lv50 or so, the game is starting to do some weird things, graphics glitchs..