Difficulty of fighting skeleton ships alone

My friends and I sometimes don't see any other ships around to form alliances with, or the only people we do see only want to kill us for no good reason. So when we go into the skeleton ship battles, we end up doing so alone. The problem with that is that we end up having to fight just as many ships as we would if we were in an alliance. I find this to be ridiculous because it makes a battle that would be crazy enough with multiple ships pretty much impossible alone. I understand they want us working together, but we shouldn't be penalized when we play alone. I think 4 ships alone is plenty. Come on Rare, don't make these things completely unenjoyable!