Sorry for the newbie questions but...

[Shoujo]

Again thanks for the replies. Just one Last question (at least for now ).

How common is it for players to rely on engine killers in the early game? Pre-Gold PPBs were the direct fire weapon people relied on heavily until they could get something better. The counter to PPBs until phased shields was armor. But now with the way engine killers work, relying on armor means a player'd get screwed over by engine killers which are cheap to reasearch and fairly low on the tech tree. (Is it just me or is this a worse combo than PPBs and armor-skipping Crystaline weapons...?) I don't see many options to counter this combo, and the ones I do see don't seem to be too good Have any of you Gold people developed a decent strategy...?

a) Go armor and shields on ships basically splitting your defense half against PPBs and half against engine killers.
b) Go seekers/fighters if the opponent doesn't have a lot of PD
c) Use diplomacy and ask an ally for help or buy off the enemy?
d) Pack a lot of supply storage on your ships

Hopefully I'm just worrying over nothing. Anyway thanks in advance.