2 or 3 heal boats supporting each other and the rest of the team can throw so many heals that no amount of escort damage can break through the volume of it. in a proper premade healing is so much stronger then damage that you can only get a kill by haveing a science befuddle a healer, or by stacking so many sci debuffs on a target that the escorts can finally deal more damage then the healers can heal. thats the 3 ship type system working.

in pugs, lone cruiser can more or less protect himself fine with a good build, but cant do much more then that. theres not enough team work and cross healing so lone cruisers often fall prey to escorts easily, leading to complaint threads about how much they suck.