Okay, here I am: I have a UE Cruiser and have the destroy raiding party mission, I have repulsor, tractor beams and SADs and dispersal rockets. Any tips on how to win?

Hmm, you're in a UE Cruiser with at least 100 armour.. Zidagar should be okay with that. Do you have Dospect Armour on top of that? What primary weapons do you have? I would suggest 5 Phase Turrets if you don't have them already. And get the speed and turning upgrades if you can afford them. You shouldn't need the beams really - I've never used them in EVO, and the SADs might not be the best choice as they're seriously inaccurate in the latest version of the game, and the Zidagar have special ECM systems that will probably render them totally useless.

Then with your phase turrets, you should be able to just stay in one place and wait for the enemies to come, and then shower them with yellow fire! That's what I'd do. The Zidagar aren't that heavily shielded. Which mission is it exactly? I've just realised you might be fighting for the Zidagar... in which case you're against the Azdgari. This doesn't change much though. When you get an Azdara close by, whack a Dispersal Rocket into it and then finish it with Phase. Try getting an scenario where there are only 2 Azdgari Warships, or even better only 1 - any more than that and you're pretty much dead whatever ship you have. Hope some of this is useful :).

Anyway, I'm amazed at the sudden pouring in of mission-related questions. Is everyone playing the EVO plugin on Nova now, or still the real thing? It's really making me want to play again! I just reinstalled Classic OS 9 with that as one of the reasons. Never really liked Nova, but I think EVO is one of the best games ever :)!