[Grandpa Kim]

After what the others have said you'll think I'm completely nuts!

Strip your ship down to essentials. Forget shields; that makes her depleters dead weight. Forget armor, makes her rethink the shard cannons too.

Your ships need vehicle control, engines to the max, supply storage and gathering, combat sensors and for weapons, ripper beams and nothing else! (Specialty weapons and anti cloak sensors can be considered too.) Set your strategy to point blank. And for goodness sake train you ships and fleets to the max!

You will be charging in to a range where you will hit her more often than she hits you. No, you won't hit 100% of the time, but you have more guns-- lots more guns-- that do more damage. Yes, you will take a h*ll of a beating but you will be pushing forward to point blank range and the RT ships will be retreating to max range. Your partially damaged ships will be left behind on the combat map and can be repaired later, so have lots of repair ships in the fleet. You will be overtaking the damaged RT ships and destroying them as you move forward.

Once she catches on to this strategy, she will change hers. Anticipate this and have new and different models building while the "stripped" fleet is engaging her.

No guarantees here. I still say player skill is the no. 1 factor but this gives you a chance to find out how good you are.

Kim