I would recommend to avoid mixing ships of different ranks, or at-least no more than 1 rank difference, so if you have R7s try to keep it that way, “most of the time” you will face lower ranked ships than if you would have R9 equipped (matchmaking is very affected by maximum rank of the ship in your hangar equipped) it doesn’t make sense to have R7 mixed with R9, so i assumed you had all r7 ships and just “unlocked r9s”, and R7s is more of T2 for me, but you are right R7 is starting of T3.
Not really no, i was trying to gain some synergy on some old ships and i tried the matchmaker with only R7. Didn’t work, 10-20 games, all vs a mix of R7-R9 ships. It just takes into account the tier, not the rank. Maybe it will work that way when we’ll have more players.