Best Ship?

[UltraMantis]

I have a new found respect for The Basilisk. It may be one of my favorite ships at this point. It starts with two shields, a drone system, AND a four man teleporter. The two drawbacks are that you start with less than a desirable amount of crew members and no weapons.

The no weapons factor really isn't an issue. If you run into a Zoltan, AI, or medbay equipped ship then simply run away. You start with exceptional defenses to provide you with escape chances. Every other ship is game to be taken for 20% extra scrap and possible crew members or items. You don't absolutely need weapons until the end boss anyway. As you progress through the game you find weapons to take care of those beginning obstacles.

The lack of a proper crew, on the other hand, is the big thing to worry about. It's down to luck whether you find crew members or not early on to make for lack of a pilot when you're raiding as well as making the most out of your teleporter. For that reason I don't know if it is the best ship, as other ships that involve a necessity of luck in the beginning to be properly outfitted. But still, it is a damn fine ship.

Been a fan of the Basilisk for a long time. I wouldn't call having lousy engines or no evasion when the pilot is out boarding exceptional defenses. The two shields are really good, unless you run into a ship with a missile. Weak engines also prevent escaping quickly. The two Mantis you start with are hillarious to watch as they attempt repairs.

Fortunately the Mantis boarders kill enemies so darn quickly that most fights will be over in seconds, and damage kept to a minimum. It doesn't take a long time to collect crew either and then the Basilisk becomes more and more of a monster ship.

Like almost every other ship, it has certain weakneses that need to be covered. Getting crew is more important than weapons, and weapons only need to be able to disable enemy medbays. Keeping the ship safe while boarders do their thing with strong shields and high evasion is another priority. On the whole, i think it's possibly the most powerfull ship in the game.

[aaOzymandias]

Yeah, I have great love for the Mantis B as well, one of the best I think. The Crystal B is close, just because that lcokdown ability the crystalmen got let you disable any system you want without any weapon when you board, and it comes with cloak. Same medbay and teleporter configuration as well.

That said, after a few rough starts the rock B actually got me a new highscore. Not a bad ship at all. Fire bomb with rockmen teleporting is nice, and great fun. As well as very effective at disabling whatever system.

But a contender is engi A, the 3 drones can be very powerful, and starting with an Ion Blast II is great.

Over all, I guess I got to hand it to the Crystal B for "best", and Mantis B as a close second. The Torus a close third in my experience.

Not really had that great success with the Red Tail yet, though I certainly see the potential.

[JonasIV]

The best ship for me is Engi ship B, It has an engi, who dosn't like engis? It has the best layout and the weapons are great, it dosn't need a human crew, instead it has a robot crew who are the best things in the game. Trust me, you are never gonna die in the game with this ship, your enemies are gonna die laughing.

[More Dakka]

Out of the ones listed, Red-Tail is probably the most predictably strong -- four one-energy-bar no-ammunition-required weapons to start with, diverse four-man crew, no glaring weaknesses.

Zoltan A can be problematic if you run into boarding events early -- not only do they completely negate the Zoltan Shield, but Zoltan are fragile.

Stealth A is problematic if you run into drone ships early; you can take substantial damage before you can run away, and if they're rebel scouts you're doubly hosed as the wave advances extra-quickly.

Engie A is somewhat less predictable than the Red-Tail; for instance, all those drone parts add up if you never see a drone recovery arm, and you're likely to miss out on the extra rewards from boarding early since engies are miserable boarders, but it can be very strong if you do get the drone-recovery aug early and a defense drone.

[Number43]

They all have their pros and cons. The crystal B is my favorite, but it has a weakness in that you can't defeat automated ships or ships with a zoltan shield in the early game until you manage to acquire at least one weapon.

[ExtraCheesyPie]

Zoltan B has a little place in my Heart.

[ZiMMy]

Basilisk is vulnerable at the beginning (much like both Stealth), but becomes really fun when you get a good crew and some guns.

[TJJ]

I'm surprised by the lack of love for the Rock B; it's a fantastic all-rounder.

- Pierce Laser + Rock Plating give an extremely stable early game.
- The extra 50 HP & fire immunity make Rockmen superior to Mantis for many boarding action situations.
- Fire Bomb opens up the possibility of captures before you get a Teleporter.
- Rockmen, Rock Plating & Fire Bomb open up a significant number of positive [blue text] options.

:edit:

The only way of getting a definitive answer is to collect some statistics on win-rates!

[Darkelve]

Zoltan B has a little place in my Heart.

Perhaps I had back luck, or a bad playing style, but I just unlocked the Zoltan B and I still find the Zoltan A nicer.

The Zoltan B has really badly placed door control and O2 systems.

My last three runs I ran into boarding events (bypassing the shields) with enemies beaming directly into the door control and/or 02 system. On one occastion, I tried to suffocate the boarders and succeeded eventually, but they broke my 02 AND door control system. I sent my 3 Zoltan to fix it, but they could not fix it fast enough. So I tried to send them to the medbay and cycle through them, but the distance between them was too far... so they all suffocated.

In my last run, two Rockmen beamed directly into my 02 control room... and eventually finished my run.

True, it does start out with a great weapon setup: 2x ion blast + Pike Beam. Meaning you can take down any shield in the first sectors and do 4-5 damage with the pike beam. But the 1 shield point at the start is annoying, especially if you run into cetain events such as Asteroid fields, or the enemy has an anti-ship drone.

[snarke]

There is no 'best ship.' The game designers did a remarkably good job of providing different ships that work with different play styles. As a result, it's easy to find people saying things like "Oh, that ship is stupid and underpowered." "What? You're crazy, I always win with that ship." Do you lose track of how many missiles you have and tend to run out? Maybe you'll be more successful with a crew-heavy teleporter/boarding strategy. If you get caught up in the other ship and don't always notice when yours is on fire or broken, then you'll probably do better with a ship with repair drones. It depends a lot on your own personal style of play as to which ship will be the easiest to win with.