[Suicide Junkie]

The secret is to put your character points into armor/shield repair. In campaign 1 I built my offense/defense up to 10 points each then put everything into armor/shield repair. By the time I got deep into campaign 2 quite often I was repairing my shields/armor almost as fast as the enemy could damage them. As a matter of fact, with the Abbidon carrier set up that way, campaign 3 really became way too easy, a turkey shoot.

Do try my P&N physics mod. It deals a number of changes to shields and armor. Should make things a bit more difficult.
Not to mention all the nifty changes to lifesupport/crewquarters & weapons.