[LesserHellspawn]

If you still fly around with a destroyer, you'll get slaughtered in no time anyway. According to my playing experience, it's highly advisable to earn yourself enough credits for at least a cruiser before even reporting to Yorkshire III in campaign 1. Not too difficult with Pirate trading missions and a destroyer with 800+ speed. Stay out of combat using superior speed. And I found it also highly advisable to save for a battleship before moving on from campaign 1 to campaign 2. I finished campaign 1 in an Abbidon cruiser 2 MK III with little trouble. The very same cruiser already got owned in the very first mission of campaign 2. You certainly can't expect to get ahead in tech in this game, but you can even out the odds by packing more of that tech into a bigger hull. 4 weapons do cut through shields and armor faster than two, and 20/40 kt shields do take more damage than 10 kt ones before failure.