I'm still playing Freelancer.
I totally bought a new ship but I forgot to save money for guns, so all I was left with was two Sunfire (?) cannons and I'd just accepted a new mission, difficulty 18 and if I aborted it'd damage my rep.
So's I decide to try the mission anyway. It's pretty massive, five weapons platforms, a small space station, about ten fighters...all of which I need to destroy.
I lure the fighters away one by one, they only appear in groups of two, then four, then four, and take them out, then I decide to try and tackle the weapon's platforms. I zoom in guns blazing and get slaughtered.
I retry the mission and use the same methods to take out the fighters, then this time I pick one of the weapons platforms on the end, I decide to see if it can shoot at me if I'm sitting right up against it, it can't turrets can't move at that angle. I use this tactic, using the weapons platforms as shields while taking out the others until they're all down, then take out the space station.
I finished the mission and now I'm a lot more careful when outfitting my ships.