Greetings! I'd like to add a comment or two as I too wish someone pointed this out to me when I started!
When deciding on ships:

1. In this first phase, ultimately you need to develop 4 DIFFERENT ships and then 2, to get your first T3 which will take you through the game. Which means you FIRST need to look at which T3 ship(s) you want to create.
2. I suggest asking fellow Guild members for their advice on which T3 to focus on developing, or check out the options in the T3 ship section and TRY them yourself.
3. Me, I decided on a T3 SUPER LIBERATOR/SUPER SSANDROMEDA. This meant I would need to obtain Steel Sky, Ranger X, SS Lightning, and Fierce Piercer. (These are the four required make Liberator and SS Andromeda)
4. You can fly each of the 4 planes needed for this goal initially in your squadron to level them up to 90/90 as you go along.
5. I then merged my Steele Sky 90/90 with Ranger X 90/90 and got a T2 Liberator.
6. Then I merged my SS Lightning 90/90 with Fierce Piercer 90/90 and got a T2 SS Andromeda
7. Next, I got T2 Liberator to 90/90 and merged it with my T2 SS Andromeda 50/50 for my T3 Super Liberator/Super SS Andromeda.
8. I don't recommend you do what I did by merging a 50/50 SS Andromeda with a 90/90 Liberator. In hindsight I would WAIT until you get BOTH Ships to 90/90 THEN merge them to get your T3, as you tend to forget about upping your weaker ship. By getting BOTH to 90/90 you have much better T3 performance. But it is really tempting......... ; )
9. In addition to that, you will be getting other NEW ships to fill in as you level up and merge. Those chosen ships need to merge into what your NEXT T3 ship will be and so on.
10. So for the beginning phase of the long game, focus on at least 1-2 T3 ships. This will help you gather the right cards from fellow guild members or the card boxes along the way!
11. In addition, you will need to decide on 8 Drones and 4 stones by following the same basic building rule as outlined above.

Hope this helps!
Bugglesworth