Having lost a 40,000 ton battleship and had 2 others crippled by a single precursor 6,300 ton ship armed with 30cm X-Ray lasers my standard WP assault craft now have an armour rating of 24 so that they can take a few hits without massive internal damage. I build these ships at about 15,000 tons , with heavy beam batteries of their own, the jump ship for each group has the same armour but is usually unarmed so it can fit a jump engine in.
If I suspect opposition on the jump point I jump these in to kill or drive off the beam armed defenders and then bring missile ships through to shoot it out with anyone standing off to use missiles