Hi all, just bought this game 
Good stuff.
Does there exist yet a general guide to racial strengths and weaknesses? I ran a few forum searches but came up empty.
It would be nice to know what weaknesses i can exploit…its rather difficult to analyze when you can’t get info on enemy ships during battle.
cheers
The enemys use the same hulls as you, you can look in the ship builder to see what bonus or drawbacks a hull has.
At my stage, I can only see federation hulls. Besides which, what i’m looking for is more a guide on racial tendencies. Such as, are they big on missiles? Do they tend to favor shields over armor? That sort of thing.
To build other hulls you have to unlock them in the Fleet HQ screen.
In there you can also unlock new hulls and weapons.
To unlock items you need to honor points, which are earned from completing battles
Federation hulls have different balanced bonuses, the alliance armor, rebels speed and empire shields. Also, certain ships have hull integrity(hitpoints) bonuses.
The Tribe has half strength defenses in exchange for double strength hulls, and the Order has decreased speed in exchange for increased power output.
Also, every race gets a few modules unique to that race, and generally follows their theme: for example, the Tribe gets projectile weapons, an enhanced cruiser repair system, and a frigate-sized repair system.