Uh... Are we talking about the same ship? Stealth ship has no shields.
I can beat it on normal, just having trouble on Hard.... Ive heard you doe an alpha strike with the big beam weapon (cant remember the name) - but never seem to roll it in the shops.
Yeh the DA-SR12 with the Glaive beam.
It starts with no shields but you can buy them for it at stores for 100 scrap initally.
The cloak will only take you so far, you eventually need shields.
Same with the Glaive beam, you can kill some ships in one shot up to about sector 7-8 when they have ton of hp, or shields to lessen the dmg.
Thats the debacle with it, some games i get the shield only to face numerous 3-4 shield enemies, or weapons and get destroyed before i can unleash them all.