Thanks for the feedback everyone. I agree, there are issues with just getting what the heck is the way to beat the ships; I'm not sure I've really nailed that down for myself either. As others suggested, it would be cool to make enemy attack patterns more gradually introduced and having more cues for your own ships. This is a game I want to continue to work on after the jam so there might be a version with that sometime in the future :)
tho for this version you might be able to get away with spamming shields (RMB, 5s cd) all over the screen and making sure it's all covered, that strategy is hilariously in favor of the player