>>15587762
That's exactly it. You grind out a bunch of components on a ship, and after getting a certain number, will unlock the ability to buy into a new ship from that one. Grind more, and there'll be a second ship available further in that ship's tree. Grind all the components available and you get your Elite/Spaded/whatever bonus to gains with that ship.
It was so so. Matchmaking is very obviously of the usual 50% winrate enforcement sort, as you'll often find yourself on or against loaded teams with names you've noticed scoring consistently high in other matches and a +1 tier advantage for anywhere from 2 to 4 ships versus bottom boarder literally who's. It feels nice to win out a slugfest, melt someone in a long range gunnery duel that they only realize they're a participant in halfway to death, or stage a perfect ambush and obliterate their HP in seconds with power to weapons and active abilities. Less fun to fumble around figuring out how to accomplish that consistently and once you do so hoping your team doesn't consist of paint chip eaters who can do nothing but feed while you slap the asses of the distracted people feeding on them. Sometimes you'll end up doing that because you just can't figure out how to poke or penetrate the enemy battleline but can't really sit and wait doing nothing either.