Lots of sound advice already mentioned in thread
Match ships deployed to the threat. A Cap can certainly take out frigates, but destroyers will do it more efficiently. Keep the caps in the fleet to create FP dominance to force the enemy to flee, catch them with a superior burn rate (thanks to AFD, Bulk Transport, Navigation and/or Sensors), then auto-resolve with a frigate/destroyer or two, no need to even deploy the cap to make use of its power. I usually never deploy caps except for large-scale battles (30+ enemy ships), or if I'm doing special pirate system bounties trying to farm XP for the ship (Progressive S-Mod mod).
Efficiency Overhaul = +50% improvement to CR regen. 5 ships for the cost of 4 (or 10 for the price of 7 if you s-mod it) is a nice secondary bonus.
Pick your fights around systems with populated planets. Dock repairs are instantaneous. It doesn't cost much to maintain at least neutral standing with everyone (except Pirates & Pathers), and neutral is enough to be allowed access to the docks (I think even -35 is still ok).
Field Repairs gives a lot of perks with getting ships back to fighting shape after battles. 25% of damage instantly healed, +50% repair rate thereafter. Alternatively, if a ship is borderline dead mid-battle, just suicide it into the enemy. Then recover it at 30-40% hull & CR, which might possibly be a quicker repair in total than say 50% CR / 1% hull and armor. Need Containment Procedures & Hull Restoration to offset the side effects of dead crew & D-Mods though.
Tons of other minor adds
Combat Endurance, Crew Training, Hull Restoration. All +max to CR %. You can do more back to back fights if you start at 100% CR than you can when you start at 70% CR.
Impact Mitigation, Damage Control, Polarized Armor, Elite Combat Endurance, Elite Systems Expertise. Less damage taken = less to repair.