Ship Tier List [SPOILERS]

[OC2142]

A little old now, but why all the hate on the Stealth B? It just needs some care when playing. I'd go as far as to say it's my personal favorite ship. All you need to do is use the long range scanners to get into as many ship battles as possible without the environmental hazards. Wait until the enemy fires and cloak. Then, with the Glaive charged, slice 'em up!! Once you get shields and anything to take enemy shields out it becomes deadly. I was quite spoiled and got a pre-igniter with a Flak 2. With the Glaive Beam... ouch. Flak works well to take out shields and soften targets up for the barrage.

[5thHorseman]

A little old now, but why all the hate on the Stealth B?

I agree. It's one of my more favorite ships.

However, it does have a huge weakness. One hit to the weapons can end a run. One hit to the cloak can end a run. Ships with 2 offensive drones can end a run.

Most other ships don't have so many easily-encountered foils in the first 2 sectors. Those ships just hit a lot by missiles and slowly degrade. The DA-SR12 avoids almost all damage and then suddenly you lose 10 in a single battle.

I personally don't see much difference between losing 10 hull points in one battle out of 10, or 1 hull point in each of 10 battles. But many others think that makes the ship horrible

[OC2142]

I also have a certain love for the Carnelian, yet a complete hatred of the Mantis A and B. I absolutely hate them both, the A for not having a four man teleporter on a 'boarding' ship and the B for not even having a basic laser to kill scouts. I like the Carnelian however despite the lack of weapons. I just have better luck with it, and it seems that my crystals can more than happily disable weapons and drones on auto-scouts. I have a particularly soft spot for the Fed A and B due to the artillery beam, but the Fed C ruins it. If they create 'D' layouts, I do hope they bring back the Artillery Beam, or better yet put an ASB Launcher on the front!

[Twinge]

A little old now, but why all the hate on the Stealth B?

The Stealth B was easily the most RNG-heavy layout before AE - while it was still pretty rare, it could flat lose the game to luck more readily than ANY other ship in the game.

Now with AE's changes, Stealth B has improved a decent chunk. Shields are cheaper, the dread Zoltan Bomber no longer appears in early sectors, and most important Hacking exists and combos excellently with the Glaive.

It still has relevant downsides, though - there is still relevant early-game vulnerability, you flat out need to spend your first 50 scrap on Level 3 Cloaking to be reliable, and then you need either Hacking or another weapon by the end of Sector 2. This really ties up your flexibility and scrap heavily in the early game and puts you on your back leg throughout. I now put it low tier but not bottom tier; it's not as bad as Engi B/Rock A/Stealth C, but it's not better than much else.

[Jhffmn]

Maybe I'm just crazy but I'd swap zoltan a and b on all these lists. Here is my thinking.

Zoltan b will suffer greatly from early boarders, drones, asteroid fields. You need scrap to get the weapons going too. And the pike beam does 1 damage to systems. The first sector is hell.

Zoltan a has a super easy early game. You don't have to worry about anything other than boarders until sector 3. You can skip upgrading shields until later. You will find another weapon by sector 3. Once you do you can disable their weapons systems by the tine they get your shield down. All you need to find is either a drone upgrade with combat or some ok weapon in the first sector or two and you are set.

The odds of finding a two power laser burst 2, flak 1, combat drone 1, or ion burst 2 have to be higher than getting through the first sector as zoltar b.

After that you can use the glaive on everything assuming proper timing for the rest of the game. I just beat the flagship with it. The early game with ship a so easy too.

Edit just loaded a game and made it through sector 3 without losing shield in combat. Also saw flak 1, laser burst 2, drone upgrade with combat, and received a heavy laser 1. Trick is to time the beam and have it hit shield first. Super easy mode. I spent my early scrap buying crew and a make 2 laser cause no need to upgrade ship till sector 3.

[stylesrj]

I find it a mark of shame on my highscore list that I got a decent score with the Noether on Normal on my iPad.
It's right in the middle, with a Normal Carnelian and a Hard Shrike run above and 2 Hard Carnelian runs below.

Dammit I hate the Zoltan ships!

[Twinge]

The biggest difference between Zoltan A and B is that Zoltan B's starting equipment is actually strong enough to take on the Flagship already if absolutely necessary, whereas the Zoltan A REQUIRES something new by Sector 3 to be in good shape.

Further consideration: Zoltan A is now stronger in AE with the existence of Hacking, as that's a fairly reliably-found option for dealing with the weaker starting weapons. Zoltan B also got a subtle small AE buff now that Beam Drones only pop 1 tick of Zoltan Shield at a time instead of 2. Zoltan A is also a lot stronger on Easy, because enemies with 2_ shield bubles show up later.

[Swagnemite]

I just wanted to say something quickly, So my first game as Stealth B went really good i managed to get to the flagship and almost kill it (it had like 1 HP left) I don't know if I got "lucky" but im in love with that ship the Glaive beam demolishes everything and everyone yes it does take a stupid long time to charge but it is worth it my final setup when fighting the flag ship was that I hacked the shield system when my Glaive was all charged up then I used my chain ion on the shield to and when the flagships shields were at 1 or none i would just let loose the Glaive it took my 2 Glaive shots to bring it down to 1 health and then sadly, I was at 1 health also and died btw i had cloaking maxed out and Hacking up to level 2 and level 3 shields

[R4V3-0N]

I find it funny that I have never won a game in the top and high tier ships but won many games in the bottom tier.

Not sure if that makes me a good player or a poor player.

[Twinge]

Here's the current version of my Tier List for AE:

Tier 0:
Carnelian (Crystal B)
The Shrike (Lanius B)

Tier 1:
The Basilisk (Mantis B)
The Theseus (Mantis C)
Red-Tail (Kestrel B)
The Torus (Engi A)
Noether (Zoltan B)
Tetragon (Engi C)

Tier 2:
Ariolimax (Slug C)
Bravais (Crystal A)
The Adjudicator (Zoltan A)
Kruos (Lanius A)
The Nesasio (Stealth A)
The Kestrel (Kestrel A)
The Osprey (Fed A)
The Gila Monster (Mantis A)
Man of War (Slug A)
The Swallow (Kestrel C)
Cerenkov (Zoltan C)
Tektite (Rock C)

Tier 3:
Nisos (Fed B)
DA-SR 12 (Stealth B)
Shivan (Rock B)
The Stormwalker (Slug B)

Tier 4:
The Fregatidae (Fed C)
Bulwark (Rock A)
The Vortex (Engi B)
Simo-H (Stealth C)