1. Purchase Cruiser.

2. Attack any Destroyers and use EMP to "steal" Droids from first section. Retreat.

3. Repeat.

4. Try to get 30 Droids.

Then...

1. Orbit friendly planet.

2. Find target ship on sensors screen (if one isn't there, go to another planet).

3. Go to planet and fire all Crew and Officers. Replace with Marines.

4. Attack ship (it may have moved on. Start over.)

5. If successful, Woot! If not, repeat, at same planet until successful.

6. Go back to planet and hire crew + officers.

7. Travel to nearest planet.

8. Rejoice! You now have a Battleship.

1.There easier ways to get Droids...Large merchants,Treasure ships, talking with govenors,...

2.if you fire the complete Crew and you will get a malus for the fight and they might just blow you to pieces ;)

Hmmm. I've checked the status screen (used this strategy today), and there isn't a penalty listed. Haven't checked the numbers generator, tho.

The only penalty i've found is on travel time.

Also, Marines are good enough to take a ship. Droids not required.