If you're going to stick to missiles and not even move to energy torpedoes then I wish you the best of luck not getting curb stomped by awakened FEs.
I have won many games with just the explosive weapons line (missiles & explosive torpedoes) and point defences for the whole game. The cherry on top is to win with Hyper drives for the entire game as well. As I said, it is a personal challenge to win this way and it is not for everybody. Awakened Empires can be defeated with any weapon type as long as your economy (empire), fleet capacity, and number of armies are large enough.
