Realized I was still five levels too low to fly a cruiser, as normally each size threshold is every five levels, but the jump from destroyers to cruisers and freightliners is actually 10 levels. I had even saved up about $16 million for both the new ship and upgrades. So I'd figure I'd look out for a place to purchase a destroyer.
While passively scumming through Genos territory, I'm ambushed by a massive groups of Genos ships; their preferred spawns appear to be small gunships(Artemis model, I think) and Ronin-class destroyers. Seeing as I'm outmatched, I shoot my way out heading towards Union space. Just as a friendly station is in sight, I noticed that all that's left in scanner range is one gunship and one Ronin. I turn back around... and pick up several more of the contacts I had just run away from. But before they arrived, I killed the gunship(one torpedo through full shields), and started to work on the destroyer. Shields down, hull damaged, about 20%-25% of their crew lost to torpedo attacks, and my marines are away. Took two waves, but the ship was captured, and friendly Union forces showed up to assist. Took out two more ships, and docked. Kept the destroyer, it was free and I have nearly unlimited funds to load it up with. Hell yeah.
Although the station I docked with has little in the way of armaments, the ship I captured, the Aegaeus, has several light missile launchers(total load: 35, previous ship had 20) and I added the enhancement that adds radiation damage(kills crew if it damages hull) to missiles.