A few strategies seem very strong to me:
With Carriers, two paths work very well:
Either way, max out fighters first (bolter drones or human fighters depending on starting money); then, you can either save up for a nuke, then buy gatlings (only on PORT side of the ship), then buy the rest nukes;
OR, buy port side gatlings without spending ANY money on turrets. Ever. Just use fighters to kill things from a distance and wait until you pick up strong weapons. You'll save tons of money which means higher scores, and you'll get up to 3 capital ships very quickly. When you find a stronger weapon, replace the ones you have. All your early upgrades go into fighter numbers, damage, or burst, then into gatling hull damage. Only when those are maxed out do you start upgrading your turrets at all. You'll have a fleet full of fun weapons like energy gatlings and flak cannons! It's also totally possible to have 3 large carriers with maxed out bolter drones and beat hard mode without ANY red weapon turrets.
With Armadas or Liberators, I find the best build is honestly nothing but projectile cannons, with recharge time maxed out. No other upgrades are necessary, and you don't even have to buy point defense or fighters! The projectiles will kill any missiles or rockets OR fighters in the way, and once you have 5+ cannons, shields will get whittled down fast enough. It's very safe and you will hardly take any damage!
