The Hercules can be a very frustrating playership. With only reactive armor and a recoilless cannon it is easy prey for a handful of Hornets or a Viking. It is too easy to die before the player can either upgrade the armor or weapon.
Maybe up the armor to heavy reactive or start it with an omni recoilless cannon?

digarw 14 Aug 2022:

Yes, it's pretty hard to start with this ship. Compared with Raijin or Spartan, this ship has pretty bad starting gear.

Dual recoilless cannon and titanium armor is at least decent equipment to start off.