Ok so here goes... I quit playing a long time ago, probably at least 5 or 6 years and a friend has sort of convinced me to give the game another go. 
I have managed to get in and hit a few salvage fleets and done some of the simpler challenges but the way some things are set up now are confusing the hell out of me, for instance trying to do some of the challenges it says I cant have such and such ships in the fleet or I have to have a certain ship I don't even have a blueprint for. I guess what I'm asking here is a little help in working out what's going on, how to get back into being a decent player or just some sort of simple guide on setting up a new fleet in the way it needs to be to run some of the challenges. Just for extra info I started playing back in the days of the mist where you could only hit in your own sector and the biggest baddest ship was the floating fortress, i do have much more advanced ships and fleets than that now but compared to some of the fleets I've seen floating around I feel like an ant at an anteater convention.

any help appreciated weather its from players or CMs