Are you speaking globally, or in terms of this game?
In a global timeline sense, your description of what the Hydral does is spot on.
That said, in the scope of this game, there's a twist to his usual shenanigans: his ship is busted in the middle of a particular war zone. So he has to send out little mini-ships with individual brains of his multi-headed self inside them, and fly into the other large ships as well as into asteroids, etc, and look for repair supplies and so forth for his large ship. As well as getting some automated defenses to help protect his ship during occasional battles that come through the sector of space that his ship is in.
Most of your time is spent flying around inside the other large ships inside your small ship, with that goal of repairing your ship. The victory condition is getting your main ship back functioning again and then getting back to what you were describing as his usual MO, heh.