Please Help a n00b

[CareyB]

Thanks for the help guys, in regard to me not giving many details on 1v1 battles, here it is:

I nearly always loose. My Cruiser would 90% of the time loose to a light cruiser, no matter what the hell I equip it with, I've run tons of simulated tests and I usually win those, but in the crunch, I loose.

BTW, in the simulator I usually try to fight 1 v 2 or 1 v 3 to know that if I can take out at least one ship, I should be able to win against most odds.

I will try Asmala's ship loadout, and haven't trained my ships at all so I will definately do that.

I haven't used mines either but keep hearing it mentioned. The reason for this is I want to expand as much as possible, and laying mines could restrict that, also it would be a waste of resources.
Would a good idea to get to a certain point, not too far out from my home system and just keep those border for a good while?