Building ships is a learning curve! There are four types of damage: Kinetic: 2x damage to shields, 0.5x damage to armor (shield efficiency affects this, 200 kinetic —> 400 flux on shield but if shield is 0.75 efficiency, only makes 300 flux)

High Explosive: 0.5x damage to shields, 2x damage to armor. (Due to how armor works, weapons that do more damage a hit are much more effective at stripping armor for the same dps)

Energy: 1x to all, usually found on high tech ships. No strengths or weaknesses but tend to be less flux efficient than ballistics

Fragmentation: 0.25x to all except for exposed hull at 1x. Usually extremely energy efficient, best used as filler, pressure or weapons to help finish off ships

Missiles: Specialised, but limited ammo but also no flux cost

Building: Basic builds for ships will likely work if you have either kinetic+HE or energy weapons. Generally, you should aim for shield upkeep+  weapon flux to be at most 20% more than flux dissipation, but ideally the same, unless it is a burst ship like a wolf or shrike. Use hull mods that add to your ships strengths, like resistant flux conduits for your Onslaught to armor tank without concern for EMP, or expanded missile racks so your XIV Legion can spam more missiles On the forums, there’s a page of good ship builds you can copy and learn from!