You don't have to restart fyi
For stuffs and giggles I ran back to my mothball sector where I leave all of my old ships and found them surrounded by new enemy ships of my design
I ended up rebuilding my cruiser as a direct-combat ship, I added 4 shield gens (that's 16 now) and gave it some cannons. I p. much just use the cannons to get shields down so the missiles can do the nasty work