Ship Tier List [SPOILERS]

[Ragwortshire]

Having just beaten Hard with Stealth B, I definitely agree that it's improved a lot! By saving up after level 3 Cloak I was able to get Shields by Sector 2, and once I got Hacking I was able to cripple basically every ship in one shot. I was very lucky in only hitting one defense drone... lots of anti-drone drones, mind you, but they don't actually do anything. I'm pretty sure getting Hacking first would have worked just as well. I got basically no weapons (like, a repair bomb and heal bomb) most of the game, but I did get a Scrap Recovery Arm and Zoltan Shield. In the end I finally found a BL2 and bought drones and a combat drone. The Flagship really didn't stand a chance; the third phase barely managed to break the Zoltan shield!

Unfortunately Stealth C looks like it's the new Stealth B... oh well. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe there's some cool micro you can do with the Shield Drone?

[CaptainTeddy]

Unfortunately Stealth C looks like it's the new Stealth B... oh well. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe there's some cool micro you can do with the Shield Drone?

Unfortunately, Stealth c is probably the new stealth b, ill probably swap them on my list because of hacking.

[riktoven]

I'm hoping that Fed A and B get ranked higher now.

Fed A with cloaking is completely broken.

[Levgre]

On hard difficulty Fed A takes a big hit, in my opinion. Tougher opponents, faster battles, the Artillery beam was okay on normal, but you get punished for your slow arsenal on hard. I'd place Fed A at the midpoint for ships. Since Fed B has the faster start I'd place it higher than Fed A, having a strong, versatile crew doesn't matter if you take a ton of pain from enemies early on.

[itg]

I'm hoping that Fed A and B get ranked higher now.

Fed A with cloaking is completely broken.

I did rank both ships higher, in no small part because they can get cloaking now, but I still put them slightly below average. Both ships are fairly weak starters in order to balance out the artillery beam.

[Twinge]

I mostly agree with itg's initial AE Tier List, and I agree the ends have been pushed in a bit. This is actually making it hard for me to differentiate as much as I'd want to for a Tier List - I currently have half of the ships in the middle tier of 5, which is awkward.

The main thing that stuck out as weird was the high ranking for the Man O War - with the significant nerfs to DeadCrew rewards, I'd expect it to be worse in AE than it was in vanilla (and it was right about in the middle before).

[itg]

I haven't played the Man of War in AE yet, so it's entirely possible that's too high. For the record, I considered it borderline high-tier before AE. When I ranked it here, I don't think I was aware of just how hard crew kill rewards had been nerfed. I do still expect hacking and mind control to help the ship, but maybe not enough to balance out the lower rewards.

[Nukeknockout]

I haven't played the Man of War in AE yet, so it's entirely possible that's too high. For the record, I considered it borderline high-tier before AE. When I ranked it here, I don't think I was aware of just how hard crew kill rewards had been nerfed. I do still expect hacking and mind control to help the ship, but maybe not enough to balance out the lower rewards.

I've played the Man of War a bunch of times in AE. Yet to win with it, but it has several significant advantages now. Slug crew is outright immune to mind control, and dual laser + ABB is just as effective at killing crew as before. The rewards are not as extreme, but quite frankly they really don't have to be - they're "higher" enough to comfortably buy more fuel, repairs, and a couple weapons. Especially if you can get a Scrap Arm, as the added benefit will just snowball.

Even if you ignore that, it starts with a weapon loadout that is capable of damaging the Flagship...potentially killing it, if the ship's regular order defenses are effective enough. Really all you need to do with this ship is get one or two BL2s and a bunch of defensive upgrades and you're set - mostly. Mind control and hacking help a lot. Of course play it yourself, but for me its solidly tier 1 alongside Federation A and Engi A.

[stvip]

OK, I've played every B and C ship on Normal, and moved on to Hard. On my Normal runs, I lost once with the "Tetragon"/"Hip to be Square", "Kruos"/"Exhale" and the "Glaive Grave" (to the Flagship - hacked shields) each - and 7-8 consecutive times with the Theseus.

Some ships seem inordinately difficult until you figure out the correct strategy for them (for example, some people don't realize the benefit of upgrading the Stealth B's cloak first, and instead attempt to upgrade engines or hoard scrap for shields, with painful results), so I'm wondering if this is the case here. What tactics are you using to disable the enemy's weaponry and/or kill the crew quickly enough to avoid taking damage? So far the best I have is using lockdown on weaponry, teleporting in to damage it down a bar, exiting the room, stunning it so that the crew inside cannot repair and suffocates while the Lanius sucks the air out. It's not good enough - certinaly not to warrant placing it in the top tier of ships. So what am I missing?
(to be fair, when I finally got it off the ground, it earned so much scrap I ended up with fully maxed systems, a store-bought Pre-Igniter, and 560 extra scrap to spare; should have just bought the Rebel Fleet out instead of fighting the Flagship)

[itg]

I haven't played the Man of War in AE yet, so it's entirely possible that's too high. For the record, I considered it borderline high-tier before AE. When I ranked it here, I don't think I was aware of just how hard crew kill rewards had been nerfed. I do still expect hacking and mind control to help the ship, but maybe not enough to balance out the lower rewards.

I've played the Man of War a bunch of times in AE. Yet to win with it, but it has several significant advantages now. Slug crew is outright immune to mind control, and dual laser + ABB is just as effective at killing crew as before. The rewards are not as extreme, but quite frankly they really don't have to be - they're "higher" enough to comfortably buy more fuel, repairs, and a couple weapons. Especially if you can get a Scrap Arm, as the added benefit will just snowball.

Even if you ignore that, it starts with a weapon loadout that is capable of damaging the Flagship...potentially killing it, if the ship's regular order defenses are effective enough. Really all you need to do with this ship is get one or two BL2s and a bunch of defensive upgrades and you're set - mostly. Mind control and hacking help a lot. Of course play it yourself, but for me its solidly tier 1 alongside Federation A and Engi A.

I did a partial run with the Man of War, and based on that experience, I knocked it down a few spots on my tier list, to right above the Kestrel, and I could see dropping it a bit more. On hard mode, the frequent upgraded medbays really hurt. For example, if a sector 1/sector 2 ship has a missile weapon and a level 2 medbay, as they often do these days, it's not easy to disable both and still manage the crew kill--I had to do it purely with the dual laser and breach bomb in one or two fights. It's also tough to stop ships from escaping, thanks to the fact that nearly every ship has level 2 piloting and pretty good engines.

I do like mind control and hacking with the anti-bio beam, but you have to get over a rocky start first.