Grinded all the way up to 3 BSE Resolutions, focusing on plasma bombers and long range weapons as my main.

That's a pretty good strategy.

I tried building a ship for close in combat, and it can do a lot of damage very quickly at short range, but standoff is better in general, since you often don't even need to repair after a tough battle. With a short range slugfest, too much can go wrong, and it's always expensive, which just makes it take longer to get through and improve your fleet.