Apologies another question for today. When it says a ship suffers one damage. Does that mean you lose a sheild if you have them or do you actually take a damage card against your hull? Thanks

The former.

It's possible for cards to be dealt ignoring shields, but the relevant ability will say that; e.g. the wording on Seyn Maran's abilty.

As noted; Damage means "1 hit, whether cancelled by a shield token or causing a damage card to be dealt".

Damage d means "has at least one damage card assigned to you", and "Unshielded" means "all shield tokens (if any) flipped to the red side".

As @thespaceinvader notes, anything which pierces shields will generally say "deal a damage card " or equivalent wording