It may seem that if you're playing Captain Forever that you can never build the ship you want to without being owned by larger ships. You've tried many different ship configurations? You've tried working on it?

Here are a few things you may be doing wrong. I have no pictures and this is not an in-depth guide to the best way to configure your ship.

1. Choosing your enemies
In order to advance the law meter on the upper right of the screen, you have to kill a higher-class enemy than what the meter says (for the power spectrum, see Section 4; the color of the asterisks in the meter will correspond to the highest level enemy you've killed). The problem is when you confront one he often beats your ship down to almost nothing. Finding the perfect kill can be tough but it's worth it.

a. Examine the enemy.
i. How many weapons does it have?
ii. Where is its command module (the red turning thing)?
a. Does it have many of those weapons around the command module if it's exposed on one side?
iii. If it doesn't, can you outmaneuver it so that you can shoot at its core without being put into danger?

If it's command module isn't exposed at all, it probably isn't a good kill, first off. Secondly, if it can turn to meet you faster than you can to meet its command module it will most likely own you. And if it is a very wide ship with many many weapons on one side, if you face that side it will own you. So wide ships, especially with girders sticking out to glue you to the ship are very dangerous.

b. Have forethought.

Again the question is its number of weapons. If you can kill it without destroying many of its weapons then you're in a great spot. If it only has one weapon, on the other hand, you may want to pass on it, because killing it risks you destroying its only weapon and therefore you getting almost nowhere.

What about its number of boosters? Boosters are important also. You want to have enough so you can outmaneuver most enemies you confront. How fast you can turn is an extremely important factor and can mean the difference between you owning it or it owning you (or you running away before it can do such).

c. Look at your surroundings.

If you are engaging a hostile and there is another, similar sized ship of the same color coming towards you and the enemy, RUN. Obviously, when you have 20 different guns pointing at your general direction, then you should be fleeing. If you're facing a blue enemy and another blue enemy comes on the com saying "Fear me", then get out of range, UNLESS you are very near to killing the current target's command module. If you don't think you can defeat it before the other ship comes into range, then flee. (Keep in mind that upon the first ship of a color being destroyed all others flee the screen)

On the other hand, if your ship is made of lavender parts (I would imagine attacking a blue one) and a yellow one comes up to you and starts shooting, it's not going to pose any sort of threat. Go ahead and continue engaging.

2. Weapon and booster placement

If at all possible, it's best to have your ship with weapons in front and boosters back. The actual placement of each doesn't matter, but I like to have stronger weapons near my core and the strongest boosters near the very far left and right of my ship. Putting boosters there means you can turn faster then putting them near the middle.

Boosters are negligible on this, but make sure to have the boosters symmetrical. Like, if you have two lavender, two red, and two purple, put one of each on each side, putting lavender the farthest from your core, then purple, then red. A third of one color can go in the middle right behind your core.

3. Exchange!

When you kill a stronger enemy, don't just take its weapons. You're free to rebuild your whole ship using the dropped parts, and its actually recommended. Remember that if a girder next to your core is destroyed, everything connected to it will vanish also. So when you get the chance to exchange for stronger girders, do so. However keep in mind that by using stronger girders you need stronger boosters also, since the stronger girders are heavier. So don't use all the girders if you don't have enough booster power. Not that you should be using them all anyway, as your ship needs to be smallish to outmaneuver the enemy. But do keep in mind you need enough space for all potential weapon and booster systems.

Finally, be quick, as the window of peace upon killing the first of a color is not unlimited. You should know how you're going to configure your ship before tackling an enemy. This isn't as important early on, but once you get into, say, the third trio of colors, with the yellow lasers, you'll be in danger if you can't set up quickly. Though, by then you should have a standard for how your ship's going to look.

4. Know your colors.

Just to know what enemies you need to kill to advance your ship technology and which ones you can pound through.
Code:
Level 1 - Alpha - Green                                          Less Powerful
Level 2 - Bravo - Yellow           < Red lasers                     
Level 3 - Charlie - Orange                                              
                                                                     
Level 4 - Delta - Red                                                      
Level 5 - Echo - Purple             < Orange lasers    
Level 6 - Foxtrot - Lavender                                           
                                                                                    
Level 7 - Golf - Blue                                                       
Level 8 - Hotel - Cerulean        < Yellow lasers                 
Level 9 - India - Sky Blue                                                
                                                                                    
Level 10 - Juliet - White          < White lasers                 
Level 11 - Kilo - Multicolor (PEACEKEEPERS ONLY)                 More Powerful
One last thing to note: CHOOSE YOUR JULIET ENEMY CAREFULLY. Once you kill a Juliet class enemy, the Peacekeepers come in to attack. And the majority of them are extremely well-armed and very agile. If you don't get enough boosters or lasers from your killed Juliet, you're pretty much screwed, because you need a lot of both to take down a peacekeeper without dieing. It's tough, but you can do it. Oh, and don't bother pulling off your Hotel/India girders either. They may not be very strong against the white lasers, but you don't have time to rearrange your whole ship.