First off, what does my rank have to do with the difficulty of space missions? Why would the health points, armor I'm wearing or abilities I have learned matter when I'm piloting a ship?

Secondly, I am a level 46. I have level 5 on everything in my ship. The only things I don't have are proton torpedoes and an EMP. I would think my ship is pretty well equipped. Yet I still can't even live long enough to complete Clouds of Vondoru, Sullust Interception or Aeten Defense. What am I doing wrong? I use my missiles effectively, but they won't take anything down in one hit. I actively switch between power going to my shields and guns, but when the power is in my shields, my guns won't kill anything, and when my power is in my guns, I die in 10 seconds. When fighters are flying at me, I can't even kill them when I missile them and use guns.

Also, even in lower level missions, I can't seem to take out turrets and shields on the capital/frigate ships. I press the right mouse button, run it over the ship until 4 missiles have targets, then let go. The missiles go on their way, and my ship flies off. Yet it never seems like I kill very many turrets or shields. I have used probably 10 missiles before and came away with 3 turrets taken down. What is going on?

Am I not outfitted enough? Are there level 6 items that I don't know about? Do I suck horribly? Or does everyone have trouble with these later missions?

I would really appreciate any input anyone has. I feel like I'm crazy or awful. I don't know which I would rather be. Thank you in advance for any help.

On harder missions first thing is to locate source of biggest damage.

Second is finding optimal way to eliminate targets.

For example last mission with defending base station :

- main source of incomming damage : bombers

- best way to eliminate : "painting" rockets + blasters -> try to focus smaller groups not whole cloud at once. For example i do clear cloud from left to right.. badly damaged ships still do same damage, clearing half of cloud cut incomming damage in half.

- use Electronic Warfare module when fighting "elite fighter", so you limit damage taken from it and bomber.

- When attacking use Conversion module to boost blasters. Best defense is offense.. switch to boosting shields only when there is no targets to attack (usualy right after eliminating cloud of bombers)

"painting" targets with rockets - hold right mouse button and drag cross-hair through targets, release mouse button. Up to 4 targets gets its single rocket... no need to click multiple times.

Tips for eliminating mine-fileds :

- each mine needs to be hit by plaster just once.. so just spray them with blaster along their lines.

- single EMP might clear up to over 100 mines in single use, when used in good position.

When destroing mine deploing ship, focus on hull first spaming it with rockets and blasters.. engines are much easier to finish in later pass.