DeferredPlum

As the title says, I'm just hoping for some space combat advice. I started as a homesteader since I want to focus a bit on Outposts and the Tech tree.

While doing the main quest and some side quests I've noticed a number of missions where I'm suddenly thrown into a 3 v 1 space fight and I get absolutely obliterated.

Any recommendations on better space combat? Not sure if I should be focusing on Lasers/Ballistics/Missles (use all 3 or just focus using two weap types?), or if I should just pony up for a nice fighter ship, or if there are a few key skills I can invest in to make those missions easier without going balls deep into the skill tree or killing my money pool.

For reference I'm

I hit 1430 5 weeks ago, and since then have honed up to 1467 but because I won't have the title for another 5 weeks, I can't get into any HM groups.

I have 6 piece relic, correct stats, LwC 18, 4 level 7 gems(the rest lvl 6), and almost all lvl 4 tripods, and I still can't get into a single HM group on party finder.

NM are also rejecting me bc I'm too high ilvl without title, which apparently means I'm bad. Not sure how to make weekly reset faster to get title to prove I'm worthy lol. Mostly wondering if anyone else is in this dead zone or if I'm doing something wrong?

Just curious to see other players take on this. I ran 3 solo guardian raids yesterday and had Chromanium run away 8 times, and on 2nd attempt he fled the scene 6 times, and then Vertus ran from me 7 times on a different character.

I know flares and pheros work to reduce the time spent running around the map but when you have to use more than you can hold with a 20 minute time limit, nearly half the time is spent chasing them.

I usually run Raids in groups to save time but sometimes I enjoy seeing if I can take a guardian solo. I wouldn't mind if there was no time limit and I could spend 30 minutes chasing a guardian. Anyone else noticing this? Is this intended?

Thanks.