FFA is the fight. It is the game as it has always been: everyone for themselves in one open world, starting small and growing by taking what the world offers and what other players leave behind.
It is meant to reward judgement as much as aim. Mining asteroids and picking up debris is steady income; destroying another ship is a windfall, but only when you finish the job, since a ship that limps away with a few blocks missing owes you nothing. Bigger ships are stronger, but they are also slower to turn and more to lose, so knowing when to fight and when to fly off is most of the skill.
The builtin ships are the ladder. Each level up offers a few designs that suit what you were flying, so a laser ship grows into a bigger laser ship and a driller into a bigger driller unless you choose to change. Fleets let friends fly together and share a score, and a party server adds custom ships for those who want to design their own.