Ship Tier List [SPOILERS]

[Twinge]

How fun a ship to use has little to do with its viability. The Bulwark is easily my least favorite ship in the game, but because it can simply buy a Teleporter and stomp everything with its Rock crewmen + missile combo, I consider it a stronger ship than the DA-SR 12 or The Vortex.

[zeteginara]

I think that the Rock B is overrated. When you get it working, (fire bombs and teleporter), it's awesome. But it takes a bit of luck to get your setup running.

You need a lot more than a teleporter to make it work against most ships. Fire Bombs take a long time to charge, and while it's doing that, you're a sitting duck. There are very few ships which you can defend against with simply 2 layers of shield.

The ideal thing to do is use your heavy pierce laser to take out their weapons, then switch to the fire bomb, wait for that to charge, and then send over your rock guys. In the meantime, they've probably repaired their weapons probably hit you a few times.

If they have missiles (which a lot of ships do), they will likely get a shot off before you take out their weapons with a heavy pierce. If their shot hits your weapons, and your shot misses (or you hit but their missiles stay up), they will hit you more (and more). Yes, the same thing could happen with most ships, but the rock crew is slow to move around and repair, and you can't vent the ship to put out fires. Very noticeable early game.

The ideal solution is to upgrade your weapons so that you can do the heavy pierce while you are charging the fire bomb, and then you don't have to be a sitting duck for so long. But what does it take to consistently do this? What does it take to get the fire bomb+boarders trick to consistently work? It takes a teleporter, which is 75 scrap (I've had some games where I don't SEE a teleporter until Sector 3). It takes you level 4 weapons, which is 35 scrap + 20 for more power.

So that's a 130 scrap requirement, never mind that the ship is still more dependent on defense than non-boarding ships, especially against automated ships or Zoltan Shielded ships where that heavy pierce takes a while to plink away while they are hitting you hard. It takes about 90-100 scrap to upgrade your shields, which you want. So that's about a 200+ scrap requirement that you have to have in addition to hull repairs, etc. You also need another weapon by sector 3 when enemies start to have 2 shields.

The Stealth ship is on a lower tier because it needs shields, which cost 150 scrap, to get it to survive past Sector 2. I think the Rock B needs at least that much to get it off the ground, if not more.

Also, even when you get it working, you consume a missile every time you use (or miss with) the fire bomb.

It's a good ship, but it takes quite a bit of scrap and luck to get it going. I don't think it belongs in the same tier as the Crystal A, which requires much less to have a good boarding ship, the Red-Tail, or the Federation A. I'd put it in low-tier. It's about equal to the Mantis A, which starts with a teleporter but much worse weapons.

[Twinge]

Might as well post my most recent list since this was bumped again. Not much has changed - The Federation Cruiser dropped a few spots because the Artillery Beam is simply too slow and cloaking is too strong. Additionally, it had the worst hitbox for Defense Drones of any ship in the game, granting only ~85% protection from a Defense Drone against missiles. The Crystal A also dropped a notch; its starting weaponry is actually on the bad end, so the only thing actually making the ship good is the OP crystal crew.

Tier 0 (God Tier):
Carnelian
The Basilisk

Tier 1:
The Torus
Red-Tail
Noether

Tier 2:
Bravais
The Gila Monster
The Nesasio
Shivan
Man of War
The Kestrel
The Osprey
The Adjudicator

Tier 3:
Nisos
Bulwark
The Stormwalker

Tier 4:
DA-SR 12
The Vortex

(As always, this assumes a top-level player on Normal difficulty.)

[GPuzzle]

Tiers? Oh, man...

Blatanly OP tiers (easy as heck):

Carnelian:
Crystal crew? Check.
Cloaking? Check.
4-Pad Teleporter? Double check!
The only thing you'll have trouble dealing with are the autoships, but once you've gotten a weapon, you're well on your way to deal with it.

Top Tier:

Shivan:
4 Rocks from the very beginning, a weapon cable of dealing quite some damage and a fire bomb? I'm sold on it.

Red-Tail:
Cheap, fast weapons, a Zoltan and a Mantis go a long way early on, and it can only get better with the right weapons and another crewmember.

The Nesasio:
Powerful, even if it needs quite a bit of pratice to get the hang of it. However, when you do, prepare to deal with enemy ships like you've never done before - cloaking in the right time, firing at the right time.

The Torus:
A fast way to train your weapon manner early on, two engis, extra drone capacity AND Engi Med-bot Dispersal? It's time for robotic warfare.

The Basilisk:
4-man telepad AND a way to deal with those pesky missiles and AI ships early on? Heck yeah!

The Osprey:
Full on defensive mode, here I come! Armor Piercing attack, for free! Although the freaking drones are a PITA without cloaking, to be honest.

The Noether:
The first 100 go into your shields, but the weapon system is decent enough to only need an upgrade later on and 3 Zoltan are just wonderful at providing cheap power

Mid Tier
The Gila Monster:
Decent, but the sheer amount of crew makes it so anyone boarding you will be screwed, and the Small Bomb is awesome at dealing with those Medbay fuckers.

Man of War:
2 Slugs AND a way to kill everyone in the ship without boarding? Nice. The small crew and not-so-good weapons do drag it a bit down, but if you can get enough crew, you're ready to go.

The Kestrel:
Basic, no big deal, but still pretty versatile.

Bulwark:
Decent, but only missiles will be one hell of a resource drain early on...

Bravais:
Crystal crew. Nuff said.

Low Tier:

Stormwalker:
Bleh. No medbay on a boarding ship... BAD. Go after a medbay, because you'll need it.

Nisos:
2-person medbay? Bad, real bad... Could be a lot better if it wasn't for it. If you really need heals, you're going to want a Healing Burst, and that takes a missile per heal...

The Adjucator:
Ooops. Decent crew, a decent layout... But a Leto and a Halberd Beam don't exactly match. A Dual Laser would bump this all the way up to top tier, though.

Bottom Tier:

The Vortex:
Okay, WTF? Thematically, it's awesome. Mechanically... We'll need something better. A LOT BETTER. And 2 person medbay ain't gonna help.

DA-SR-12: When you need a freaking Weapon Pre-Igniter to be useful, something has gone wrong with you. Something has really gone wrong with you.

[zeteginara]

After having completed the game with every ship, I made a tier list. Feel free to disagree with me!

Tier 1 (The Best Around)

Crystal B - The Carnelian

Tier 2 (Almost Perfect)

Mantis B - The Basilisk
Kestrel B - The Red-Tail
Zoltan B - The Noether
Crystal A - The Bravais

Tier 3 (Solid Ships)

Kestrel A - The Kestrel
Engi A - The Torus
Federation A - The Osprey

Tier 4 (Below Average, but good with a bit of luck)

Stealth A - The Nesario
Mantis A - The Gila Monster
Slug A - The Man-of-War
Rock B - The Shivan
Zoltan A - The Adjudicator
Federation B - The Nisos

Tier 5 (Rather Terrible)

Mantis B (again) - The Basilisk
Rock A - The Bore-wark
Slug B - The Stormwalker

Tier 6 (Rock Bottom)

Engi B - The Vortex

Tier 7 (Hell)

Stealth B - DA-SR 12

EXPLANATION:

Tier 1 - The Best Around

And nothing's gonna ever keep it down. As only one ship is on this list, I'll let the explanation of that ship do the explaining.

Crystal B - The Carnelian

This ship, as others have said, is ridiculous and almost a guaranteed win. Sure, it can't do much against Automated Ships or Zoltan Shielded ships until it gets a weapon, but even if you are forced to run from those fights, the total scrap you will save by STARTING with a cloaking device makes it worth it. You have to have a run of bad luck and more to fail with this ship. Crystal boarding with lockdown is overpowered, and a four man teleporter makes this ship ridiculous. If you can get your hands on a couple of mantises, they should pretty much roll the credits then and there. But even without that, this ship is amazing.

Tier 2 - Almost Perfect

These ships are greats, and much easier to consistently win the game with. Rather than requiring a bit of luck to get off the ground, these ships tend to make their own luck, and require a lot of bad luck for an experienced player to fail with.

Mantis B - The Basilisk

This ship has the unique distinction of being placed twice on this tier list. The Basilisk shares the same weakness that the Crystal B has against automated ships and zoltan shields, but starts with a few more liabilities that need to be developed. For example, only level 1 engines, which are easy enough to fix, as well as no cloaking, and only two crew. This is huge, as you are forced to not have a pilot while boarding your first several ships, giving you a 0% evasion rate, and making it so that your FTL isn't charging in case you get into a jam. Also, you need weapons vs. automated ships, whereas the Crystal Ship can simply board them with an improved teleporter. Because of this, even when the Mantis B gets that little boost of luck that it needs, it still doesn't match up to the awesomeness of the Crystal B (which doesn't need luck), though it comes close.

Kestrel B - The Red-Tail

This ship is awesome. It starts with a less versatile, but just as adaptable assortment of weaponry as it's brother. No burst laser II (which is probably the best weapon in the game) is huge, but it makes up for it and more with an overall better layout (for easier venting, a teleporter next to the medbay, etc), and a more varied starting crew that pretty much allows you boarding the second you can afford a teleporter. This ship is pretty good no matter which way you slice it, probably the most adaptable ship in the game.

Crystal A - The Bravais

This ship starts with a couple of really good weapons that will hand you fights in the first few sectors, because they ignore a layer of shields... and they pretty much remain pretty useful throughout the game. You also start with Crystal Members, and have I mentioned that Crystal Boarding is overpowered? Of course, you will eventually want to turn this ship into a boarding ship. It won't be as great as its brother, Crystal B, but it will still be one of the best boarding ships in the game.

Zoltan B - The Noether

First of all, the Zoltan Shield rocks the first few sectors and continues to be useful throughout the game. It makes the Zoltan Ships the only ships that start with perfect defense against missiles. Second, starting with two ion weapons is AMAZING. Two Ions + A beam is a legitimate combo, even for the end game.

The bad news is that you could get unlucky with your ions missing, and once your zoltan shield is down... you have no shields until you get the 100 scrap needed to get 'real shields'.

However, upgrading your engines early on prevents that Zoltan Shield from going down most of the time. Your two ion blasts will likely be kept for the entire game; the constant firing will level your weapons operator quickly, and that combined with an automated re-loader will make it so you can ion down those shields faster and keep them down (along with other systems) more reliably. You may find yourself simply replacing that pike beam with a halberd or glaive beam late game; it gets the job done, especially if you improve your defenses and can find Stealth Weapons to keep the enemy ships ioned while you cloak and your weapons charge. Either way, the point is those dual ions will be useful throughout the game; they are a deadly combo, very adaptable with any weapons you pick up, and open you up to concentrate more on defense and less on praying that you get a better weapon.

Tier 3 - Solid Ships

This is the 'average' tier. The tier shared with the starting ship that all ships are compared to, the Kestrel A. These ships are all consistently winnable by a good player, requiring a major string of bad luck for failure to happen.

Engi A - The Torus

This ship is great and fun to play with. It can create the fool's trap of relying on drones, as it is a drone-based ship. I remember when I first tried to play it, I had a really hard time because I tried to rely fully on drones. Drones are good. Drones are amazing, actually, but make an unreliable offense. I found that the best drone in the game is simply the Defense Drone I. If you can get that and a Drone recovery arm, it gives you a good, reliable defense against missiles.

Still, even if you don't get that (nothing is guaranteed in this game), the Torus starts with a weapon that will eventually take down the shields of every other ship in the game. All it needs is any other weapon (and it does start with an attack drone, so that is a start), and to up its defenses, and it will be set. It can have a somewhat rough time starting out without taking some hull damage here and there, but it's not as rough as some other ships.

Kestrel A - The Kestrel

Everyone starts the game taking the Burst Laser II for granted, which, as I've said, is probably the best weapon in the game. 3 shots for 2 energy? Just once I'd love a game where I found 4 of these suckers and fully upgraded my weapons for 12 shots. Actually, it probably wouldn't be as good as some other combos, but it would certainly be fun. Anyway! This ship probably starts with the most versatile weapon loadout of any other ship. The Burst Laser II especially will adapt to any other weapons you find in the game, and the Artemis Missile gives you the option of quickly taking out a system that might do more damage than the cost of a missile. All in all, this ship gives you plenty of options to do well in the game with.

Federation A - The Osprey

So, the artillery beam is great. Very great. There are plenty of games where the RNG can screw you out of weapons, but The Osprey will overcome and rise above such rabble. However, the blessing of the artillery beam comes with a couple of curses that keep The Osprey down to the average tier. First, no cloaking, which is quite awful. This makes The Osprey quite vulnerable to big volleys, and especially vulnerable to missiles. The Osprey is the largest ship in the game, making it harder for Drones to defend against missiles. So, the Federation Cruiser has a slight weakness to missiles, which every enemy ship seems to have. All in all, this can give the Federation Cruiser a pretty rough mid-end game, especially if it cannot find a Defense Drone I for the life of it, which can and will happen to the best of us. All in all though, a solid choice.

Tier 4 - Below Average

It isn't too hard to win the game with these ships, but they do present a larger challenge than The Kestrel A, and have a few more things that can 'go wrong' and cause you to have a really hard time. Simply put, these require a bit more luck to pull through with.

Stealth A - The Nesario

This ship almost got in a higher tier on sheer fun factor. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's true. The Nesario is just plain fun to play. It does start out with one of my favorite augments in the game- Long Range Scanners. Still though, it is slightly luck based. You will want to buy a shield system early on, and there is a bit of a chance that a shield system will not be available to you until it is too late. However, if the chips fall in the right places, the Nesario could easily be justified to move into a higher tier.

Mantis A - The Gila Monster

This one is hard to place. It's probably at the top of this tier, or a bottom of the "Solid Ships" tier. In the end though, it does require more luck to get going than The Kestrel and is more committed to boarding, whereas the Kestrel is a bit more adaptive and able to win more games.

Take the mantis B, take away the 4-man teleporter, and give it better crew, but worse shields and a rudimentary supply of weapons that essentially almost begin the game obsolete. Still though, a Small Bomb is a surprisingly effective weapon, especially against the final boss. However, in the context of a starting weapon where the only other weapon is a basic laser, and you don't have enough power to power them both (and it takes 60 scrap for an upgrade), means that you begin the game pretty vulnerable.

However, you do begin with the ability to send over 2 mantises, which takes 75 scrap for a teleporter and enough luck to find 2 mantises with any other ship. So with a bit of luck you'll be able to scrape up better weapons by the end of the first few sectors.

Slug A - The Man-Of-War

The starting weapon loadout isn't bad at all. Dual Lasers are always welcome, 2 shots for the cost of 1 is more powerful than people realize. A breach bomb isn't bad, and the anti-bio beam is unique and actually gives you a blue option for that dreaded Giant Spider encounter.

You start with a paltry 5 missiles, so it's obvious that you are intended to stick with the dual lasers and anti-bio beam. The 2 crew doesn't help this ho-hum ship much either. Slug Repair Gel protects against breaches, making it situational and probably a good thing to sell for some much-needed scrap early on.

Rock B - The Shivan

A lot of people like this ship, making this kind of a divisive placing for it. Bottom line, it starts with Fire Bombs, which are good, and Rockmen, which are good. If you can set fire to the enemy ship and send your rock men over, awesome, that's a really good combo.

The problem with this is several things, which I'll count down with a numbered list:

1. The ship doesn't come with a teleporter, which is an obvious first problem. There's a good chance you'll get a teleporter around sector 2, but as I've said before, a good rule to follow is never expect or rely anything; I've had some games where I've stopped at every store I could and didn't see a teleporter until Sector 5.

2. Fire Bombs take 15 seconds to charge. During that time you are getting pelted by the enemy ship. This is kinda what the heavy pierce is for, though. But still; that fire bomb could very well miss. And even if it hits...

3. It takes some time before an on-fire system gets damaged, so you can't reliably count on your fire bomb to destroy systems. Again, this is what the heavy pierce is for, but...

4. Even if all of the above are overcome swimmingly, you are still consuming at least one missile every fight.

The point is, In order to get your setup going, you're going to need a teleporter and some power for that teleporter, which is about 100 scrap, and you are either finishing up Sector 1 (with a bit of luck), or are in sector 2. Either way, enemies with level 2 shields are on the horizon, which means your weapons are in need of an upgrade too and that heavy pierce laser is going to go from amazing to obsolete really quickly. Also, if you don't have some upgrade to your defenses by the time you hit Sector 3, like level 4 shields or a cloaking device, your hull is going to take damage quickly.

And so, we see that The Shivan, if you can get it going, is amazing, but it takes quite a bit of scrap and luck to get the combo it was built for to work effectively, which keeps it to this tier.

Oh, and did I mention that you can't vent The Shivan at all?

Zoltan A - The Adjudicator

Zoltan Shields are awesome, and this ship pays for them. As soon as you see enemies with level 2 shields, that halberd beam is pretty much useless on its own. You'll need a laser or an ion weapon to keep it afloat, weapons wise, and the chances of finding one by then are pretty good. Leto Missiles are terrible; that goes without saying, and rarely will you find using them worth wasting a missile. Still though, this ship is probably higher up in this tier because of the Zoltan Shields. If you can get your hands on a pair of ions (or an ion blast mk. II) you are set for the game. If you can get a burst laser I or II, it will combo well with the glaive beam. But both of these examples require a level 4-5 weapon system, which takes scrap. So this ship does take a bit of luck to get it running, but not much.

Federation B - The Nisos

Let's compare this to the Federation A.

This ship starts with a level 2 artillery laser!!!!1 ...and trades off a lot to do that.

First of all, I consider the crew worse. A slug provides no benefit to the starting lineup as seeing the enemy crew doesn't help you much. A Zoltan is awesome, but not worth the loss of the Rock, Mantis, and Engi, or the fact that the Federation A starts with 4 crew and this clunker starts with 3.

Second, the Weapon selection is quite a bit worse. Dual Lasers (which are good, don't get me wrong), instead of the (much better) Burst Laser III. Leto Missiles barely enter the mix in terms of comparibility. A missile and 9 seconds of charge time for 1 damage? Sure, it bypasses shields, but ugh. It's obvious that this ship was made to be more challenging, and that level 2 artillery laser doesn't account for much; you need to get some good defenses to get the artillery laser to start pulling its weight.

But, you do start with 30 scrap, which is a unique advantage. If you take away the fact that it's so much worse than the Federation A, it's still a very salvagable ship.

Tier 5 - Rather Terrible

These ships are very easy to putter out and lose effectiveness around Sector 2 or 3. These require some luck, mainly to find a better weapon, than higher tiered ships.

Mantis B - The Basilisk

This ship, as I've said above, has a distinction: It's on both Tier 2 and this tier. Why? Well, when the Basilisk gets even a little bit of luck, you will have no problem steamrolling through the game with it. Teleporting 4 dudes aboard the enemy ship, even if they aren't all mantises, is amazing, and getting to that point requires just a little bit of luck...

...and if you don't get it, this ship will die and die quickly in the first couple sectors. You would think this puts the ship in tier 3 or 4 since it requires luck, but I think the fact that it is so drastically binary... either the ship conquers spectacularly or fails spectcularly, and it has a pretty much equal chance of doing either is reason enough to put it on two tiers at once.

Reasonably though, if I were to only pick one, I would put it on tier 5. A good counter argument is that when it fails, it fails early, and it doesn't take much time to restart; but such an argument is unroguelike and unflavorful. You are the last chance the Federation has against the ruthless, selfish rebels, and while that failure may mean only a quick restart for you, it also means the last hope died and plunged the galaxy into a hundred years of darkness in the context of the game. In that possibility, the ship that failed, just... failed, period, and there is nothing to be done to save it.

If you only had one chance to play FTL, would you pick the Mantis B?

That said, a more descriptive reason why it's split into two tiers is because in terms of gameplay, the bit of luck of finding a couple more crew and an alright weapon can immediately elevate this ship to godhood. It's not dependant on a certain specific weapon or crew either.

Rock A - The Bulwark (or the Bore-wark)

This is the most boring ship in the game, period. So boring. Slow moving boring rock crew with so many boring missiles. And, when you run out of your boring missiles in the middle of sector 2 because the RNG didn't give you any more, or a non-missile weapon, which this boring ship so desperately needs... you have to do a boring restart, and start this boring ship on another boring run from the boring beginning. So one of the things that keeps this ship in a lower tier, other than the fact that it is highly luck dependant on finding a non-missile weapon, is because the sheer feeling of boredom this ship will bring upon the player acts as a weapon, that will cause the player to play at a lesser quality level.

Slug B - The Stormwalker

This ship is bad, but it isn't the worst, not nearly. So let's start with the positives. It does start with 3 crew, which is better than one (see below). It has a selling augmentation that you can sell for decent money, and the Artemis Missile is actually pretty good. It also starts with a teleporter, and 2 slugs isn't the worst thing you can send to the enemy ship in the beginning. Sure, if they have mantises or rocks you'll have to do it in a couple of trips, but it's not that bad.

So, the negatives... It's a boarding ship that doesn't have a med bay. Instead, you have Healing Bombs, which... since you are dependant on Artemis Missiles for taking out weapons systems/zoltan shields/the occasional rare med bay early on, and Healing Bombs for healing, you are going to run out of missiles really quickly. So, this ship needs a medbay (which aren't that bad at 60 scrap, but you have to find a shop that sells one. They are common, but as I've said before, you can't depend on anything in this game), and a non-missile using weapon. If you don't find/buy them, you're going to have to restart by mid-sector 2.

Tier 6 - Rock Bottom

There is only one ship on this tier, and it is pretty self explanatory why it exists.

Engi B - The Vortex

This ship could be worse I guess. It starts with a Heavy Ion, which is decent, and a Heavy Laser, which is alright, but that's where its advantages end. The worst part is that it starts with a single crew member, the pilot. To repair your ship and fend off boarders, it starts with two sys repair drones and an anti-personnel drone.. which is actually worse than having crew members, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because you can take full advantage of this; by upgrading your doors and venting out the rest of your ship, you can pretty much become immune to fires and boarders (unless either lands in the Bridge... then you are rather screwed).

Still though, it isn't the worst ship (that's below). If you find something cool at a store early, you have plenty of stuff to sell. Getting crew members can be common sometimes, too. You at least have a weapon combo that can reasonably beat any ship in sector 1, so there is plenty of wiggle room to survive; nothing early on in the game will insta gib you, unlike....

Tier 7 - Hell

Once you hit rock bottom, the only direction to go is... further down to the metaphysical.

Stealth B - DA-SR 12

AKA, what I like to call the "Moon Tiara Magic" ship because of the long charging sequence of the Glaive Beam.

One of the many definitions of 'Hell' is 'trying to win with the Stealth B', which is easily the most luck based ship in the game. What I mean by that, is this ship NEEDS a string of luck in order to not die, early and often, in Sector 1 or 2. If your weapon system gets hit by a stray bit of fire, you are likely dead, as your ship is a sitting duck while you repair the weapons system. You can cloak if you haven't already, but it still means your ship has several opportunities to be hit (and your weapon system is likely to go down again... and get hull breached and set on fire), etc.

Your best bet is to get level 3 cloaking ASAP and memorize when you can cloak and make it so you can fire your glaive beam before the cloaking expires (PROTIP: Right when the 'charging bar' hits the second pixel on the meter showing how much power the weapon system is taking up).

But still, this does not hand you the first few sectors. If your enemy has an attack drone (or worse, a beam drone), it can easily hit your weapons or cloaking before you can hit that magic moment, so you have to pay attention to where the drones are firing and will likely have to cloak early. If the other ship has a Zoltan Shield, you need two glaive beam volleys to take it down, meaning that you are guaranteed to be fired upon. If the other ship has a cloaking device, it will also be guaranteed to get a volley off.

So, you need shields, absolutely, but they aren't your priority... I wish they were. Level 3 cloaking is. So you need 200 scrap to turn this ship from "God-awful" to just "Bad", and by then you are in mid-sector 2... level 2 shields are coming quickly, and you are in need of a better weapon ASAP, which means more scrap. Getting to this point happens one out of every 5-10 times to even the best of players, and you have a long way to go.

But... if you can get super lucky and get an early Weapon Preigniter? This ship suddenly went from being terrible to very, very awesome. At least for the beginning.

[riktoven]

I'm not going to say it's worth giving up the cloak for the artillery beam, but it's one less system you need to buy, you can fully upgrade it for 10 more scrap than stealth costs, and in both ship variants it is far away from the weapons bay, so it would take a lot of firepower to damage both systems, making the ship very hard to gimp.

This is one of those ships that doesn't have to rely on luck to find weapons (I've had several runs with the Red Tail where I got to sector six without finding a weapon or a shop selling any....beyond frustrating when the RNG has it out for you).

This is also one of a very few ships where I'm torn on using the weapon pre-igniter since automated reloaders shine so much coupled with the artillery beam. I had a God run the other day where by sector 7 I was rolling with 3 automated reloaders, two Burst Laser IIs, a Halberd Beam, and a Heavy Laser I.

With that setup the artillery beam is firing every 11seconds, the Halberd Beam every 6.1 seconds, the burst lasers every 4.3 seconds, and the heavy laser every 3.2 seconds with a fully leveled up weapons guy. I know it's not uncommon to beat the final boss without taking a hit, but there is a certain satisfaction in killing him before he can get a power surge off in the first two encounters, and no more than one in the last.

The Osprey has a better crew and ship layout (very defendable from both ship weapons and boarders), while the Nisos has a slightly better God config possible (with dual lasers better replacing the heavy laser).

I really dig the Osprey.

[riktoven]

I forgot to mention the Artillery beam also makes it the only ship capable of bringing 12 weapon power to the fight, and unlike other weapons that go offline when the system takes 1 damage to that weapon, this one keeps on charging, just a little slower.

[The Captain]

@zeteginara - With a 4-person teleporter, the Mantis B goes at the top, IMO. And while Crystals can board autoships immediately, they can't take them out, whereas the Mantis B's boarding drone can, if the autoship has connected rooms. That's very slow, so you could say both ships need weapons - also factoring in Zoltan Shields. While the Mantis B doesn't have cloaking, it starts with two layers of shields, making it immune to many early ships, plus you have a defense drone mk I (of course drone parts are a limiting factor). Sending both Mantises doesn't necessarily leave the Mantis B a sitting duck.

I think the Engi A is a little better than "solid." Sure, it doesn't start with a damaging weapon, but the ion blast mk II will last the whole game. Get a defense drone mk I, and due to its small size, the Engi A is better protected than other, larger ships. And the medbot dispersal means you can better deal with boarders: you might not need to run to the medbay, or you can delay going there, protecting your systems longer.

BTW, the Stealth A is the "Nesasio."

[Iranon]

Engi A also has the highest starting value (in terms of scrap cost to outfit a barebones ship that way) and can often go for crew kills by ionising the Oxygen system, blue options are none too shabby either.
Together with one of the best layouts (small, easy to defend, good room placement) I'd put it just below the Carnelian.

[zeteginara]

Fixed for Nesario. Oops.

That's a good point about The Torus. When I first played the Torus, it was when I was still relatively unskilled in the game and didn't realize how powerful the Ion Blast Mk II was as a starting weapon, so I lost a lot and found the ship to be wanting. Now that I am a lot more experienced a player, it's probably good to move the Torus up a tier.

As for the Osprey, yes, the Artillery beam is potentially very powerful when the ship is built a certain way; but there is no guarantee that you will be able to find a way to build that ship in that way. Cloaking is more reliable for getting through the game than the Artillery beam in my experience, especially when it comes to dealing with missiles.