I lol...I've killed many swarm ships...with ease...so much ease...even at pitifully low tech levels....But I'm special like that, probably because I 95% of the time start my game in NEBULA
And lo, their shields did flicker.
And lo, their defenses where down.
As we cried, we have not even touched them yet.
pew pew
Also, its ridiculously easy fun to capture things (like any swarm ship) with my insanely armoured combat drop ships (you know, so they can actually MOVE in my pretty, oh so pretty, nebula).
So, there's one epic tip for you. Do your best to lure anything and everything into nebula's! Also great for de-missiling missile slinging enemies. Great lol's abound when your enemy tries to ram you going that slow.
Though, forget fighters until epicly high levels of armour and engine tech...and gunboats are only up there in just plain normal high level's...And side effects occur...like wondering why peoples ship designs for combat only have 8-10 layers of armour...because all your ships are up at least in the high teens...and what are all these missiles and shields people keep talking about, why are these strange things on their ships?