Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kpop on April 03, 2020, 07:51:39 PM
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I usually have a few go-tos for each stage(early/middle/late) mostly depending on what I can get my hands on or the theme I'm running with. For example SO hammerhead is a staple with ACGs and Dual Machine Guns is solid for whatever I do earlygame. 8xAM Doom is just clownmode. However I do enjoy certain ships quite a bit...
Vanilla
Early: SO Hammerhead
Go in, grind through shields and armor, what's not to like?
Mid: SO Eagle
Same as the hammerhead, but without AAF. More guns, and flux and shields to stay safe in the face of increasing firepower.
Late: 8x AM Doom
If you want something dead, look no further. If you want a lot of things dead, you've come to the right place. 8,400 energy damage in one go is more than you can shake your stick at. Setting 6x to linked and 2 extras to a separate weapon group to alternating for smaller or weakened targets makes a good compromise. Additionally, if you can spare the flux, finish a target off that wasn't quite dealt with by the initial salvo of 6 firing at once. The mines allow you to be autonomous without friendly fighter support to delete swarms of fighters coming your way(which they certainly will). The AI also has a thing about prioritizing shifting their Omni-shield towards mines, meaning if you plant a few mines opposite of your Doom with the enemy ship in question between them, any ship with an Omni shield will leave themselves wide open for a brutal catch-22.
Modded:
Early: Marksman-class
This thing is the absolute unit when it comes to how fun it is to pilot and how it rips apart Explorarium ships due to their lack of shields.
Mid: Castigator
When I did get my hands on it in a few playthroughs at that point, I was having SOOO much fun. The burn drive it has(assault burn?) never ceases to make me laugh. Simple minds are amused by simple things I guess. The TPCs are a plus, but not the main attraction. Yeeting a destroyer with a nice ramming manuver that sends it flying off the screen, destroyed or not, is just oh so satisfying.
Late: Siegfried(the variant with the guns, no shield, flares and Advanced Targeting Core)
This bad boy when equipped with 8 long range Arbalests might as well be the definition of overwhelming firepower. Sure it takes a long time to get to where it's going, but the range is so massive and the damage to match I might as well be hunting pheasants.
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As your mentioned favorites belong to mod libraries, I'll just talk about the vanilla flagships.
Early: Apogee/Heron/Aurora
A decent flagship that fits my playstyle: supporting fire to defeat ships in detail. Apogee extends exploration range and operations, making surveys cheaper while economically downing defense drones. Heron is easier to procure (and its equipment) in a black market, fielding bombers where needed. Aurora is fast on its own, capable of delivering key tactical support for frontline ships. Operations center optional when commanding with finer granularity.
Mid: Odyssey
A good capital with decent mobility and firepower, using plasma burns to change distance when needed. As a broadsider ship, it does take time to get used to, but armed with ion cannons, IR pulse lasers, and autopulse cannons on one side, and Paladin PD on the other. Fighters depend on the needs, preferably using Remnant fighters to conserve crew losses for losses coming from dedicated carriers, useful when carrying marines for operations.
Late: Doom
The best flagship I can think of in vanilla when it comes to executing hammer-and-anvil tactics as quickly as opportunities arise, allowing Paragons and Onslaughts to deliver crushing power when the target is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Only armed with 4 AM blasters, 2 phase lances, and 2 reaper torpedoes, it is meant to distract enemies and ease the heat from the frontline.
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Early: Apogee/Heron/Aurora
You and I must have vastly different opinions on what constitutes "early game" if you're throwing the Aurora in there. You can start with an Apogee and can find a Heron relatively quickly but I've never found an Aurora (bought, salvaged, or otherwise) until late-game, if ever. :P
As far as vanilla goes:
Early:
Hammerhead is my go-to, usually at medium or short ranges. Heavy Mortar + Heavy AC is a pretty good combo that isn't too hard to manage but I prefer the Assault Chaingun with Heavy Machine Gun if I can manage it. If I can find a Tempest (which isn't terribly hard), a Phase Lance and Graviton Beam is a great early combo to wipe out Frigates and really pressure Destroyers.
Falcon (P) is also a fantastic early game ship, if you can outfit it properly. It really punches above its weight in small-to-medium fights and it doesn't slow down your fleet of Destroyers.
Mid-Game:
I tend to eschew capitals until I can support them so a solid Cruiser is where I gravitate in the "I have a colony but still need to fight bounties for cash" phase. If I can get an Aurora, that's my unicorn but those are really rare. I really like SO'd Eagles with Assault Chainguns and Heavy Machine Guns, sort of like a larger, more aggressive Hammerhead. It lacks the pure offense that Accelerated Ammo Feeders has but the Eagle is a much sturdier platform and has much more flux to spare so the Energy weapons can be AM blasters, Phase Lances, Ion Cannons, etc.
Late-Game:
If I have well-oiled colony machine and am making money hand-over-fist, a fleet with 3-4 Capitals isn't out of the question for me. The Odyssey is my go-to because I prefer the mobility and because it can hit hard for a very long time if built right. Legions are also about in the same boat but their hard to justify from a logistics standpoint.
If I can find an Aurora, that still tends to be my favorite because I can make it flux neutral and it flies all over the battle space. It's faster than most frigates. It does lack in the heavy-hitting department but its so slippery that against everything but a Star Fortress, it can get in and out without much trouble. The range of stations make it less than ideal.
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I've actually been messing around with SO falcons for early/mid game. I think they are more flexible than SO hammerheads. I do 1 HMG, 1 assault chaingun and 2 phase lances (maybe antimatter blasters too, but there isn't quite enough OP to spare). They can get a lot more dissipation than a hammerhead, and although you don't get the super high damage ship system, maneuvering jets is actually amazing for getting safely in and out of engagements. I found that the SO falcon performs much better against cruisers than SO hammerhead because you could much more safely get in range, and it generally gives you more control of the battle field. I also like SO eagle for mid-late game.
For late game in vanilla, odyssey is my favorite by a significant margin, but doom is also very strong. Aurora is very fun to fly (maybe my favorite), but it's just not as impactful as an odyssey/doom for me. I find that doom does all the same things that the aurora does, but a bit better. For really hard fights, I will fly a paragon because I can have the maximum impact, but I don't find it very fun or efficient.
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I would usually favour mobility for the piloted ship (which is rarely the strongest ship in my fleets):
- early: Wolf, eventually replaced by Shrike or Shrike(P)
- mid: Falcon
- late: Conquest, maybe Aurora in some situations
Also, favourite main gun on all of those (except Conquest) is 1 Heavy Blaster.
( not going to mention mods, because then it gets complicated :P )
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Early game: Tempest if I can find it, Sunder
Mid game: Doom, but if I don't have it it's pretty much any decent cruiser I currently have in my fleet, unless it's a carrier. If I ever had luck to find an Aurora in campaign it would probably be my flagship and even then I'd rather pilot a Doom.
Late game: Conquest
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My favourite frigate to fly is Tempest, with no contest. It's fast, it hits hard and it's fun to play with the drones.
Destroyers... I like Hammerhead, it's decently easy to find. I often wish I could get a Medusa at this stage, but this rarely ever happens. From mod ships, I like Archon (excellent for soloing) and Marksman (it's very nifty in general). I don't have as strong preference in this weight category.
In vanilla, I often try to get an Aurora for myself. It's just so fun to zip around in it. Honorable mentions to Vindicator (S) (rock this guns and you'll rarely need anything else) and Adamas (the only phase ship I can get behind).
For capital ships, I like Odyssey, though less so since carrier rework, and Paragon, especially the quad tach lance sniper, but I most often find myself flying a Conquest. It's satisfying to just beat everyone into submission with it. It's very common, too.
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Early (when I start a game): Apogee. Get out of early-game hell as quickly as possible. Can solo incomplete pirate bases.
Mid-game (when I build first colony): Apogee/Conquest. I still have a fleet of clunkers. I use Apogee until I get my first capital, which is usually Conquest because it is the most common capital. Either I recover one from bounties/expeditions, or I steal the blueprint from Independents at New Maxios.
Late-game (when my first colony grows to size 6, I have all blueprints, and/or I have an Ordos smasher fleet): Paragon. It is probably the most powerful ship, and I like power. It also has the most range of any non-carrier, and I like to fire guns, not whack things up close with knives or metal sticks, which is nearly every other weapon. Most weapons' shot range is annoyingly short, one thing I dislike about Starsector.
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I must ask: what mod(s) are Marksman and Siegried from?
To the topic
Early: I prefer a Mule(for generic stuff), a Hammerhead(for mayem) or a Sunder(if it I'm a 'fancy' mood)
Mid: an Apogee does wonders(in current version) or an Eagle(weird huh?) to allow decent combat variety at a resonable price
End: Conquest you I will or a Paragon if something gets too tenacious
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In my last runthrough I started with a Hammerhead, which is always a solid ship, then I got lucky and snagged an Onslaught XIV from an early bounty. I was running all the combat skills, so I packed on all the armor hullmods and had a blast burn driving around and neglecting my shields. Of note:
- One time I had a whole Remnant Sub-Ordo whaling on me to near-zero effect. Over 90% of the damage I took that battle was from ram-killing a Brilliant. (Don't ram-kill things. Seriously. Even with tons of armor and all the skills, I still took 11,000 hull damage.)
- Another time I beat a bounty that had 5 Conquests and ~10 cruiser carriers. I only had my Onslaught XIV with 4-5 cruisers and a few smaller ships as backup. Admittedly, it took a few tries.
Highly recommend everyone try Combat + Onslaught XIV out sometime. 2.4k armor + Combat skills shrugs off everything except sustained high-alpha HE barrages. Much more exciting than a Paragon flagship.
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For me:
Early: Drum/Hammerhead/Mule.
- The Drum is for exploration, being one of the cheapest ships to run in the game and having incredible range, in combination of one of the best burn speeds allows me to make the pirates not agrecive and find a extremally strong position to settle far before I want to get a colony.
- The Hammerhead is to kill stuff using the SO build.
- The Mule is if I want to go trading, since it can run away from the pirates better than all of the destroyer size freigthers.
All of these ships are good for towing Legion(XIV)'s from the fringes to the core.
Mid: Apogee/Atlas Mk. II/Legion(XIV).
- The Apogee is curently the best proper exploration ship in the game, and I what to go out and explore after I finished the first colonies defences.
- The Atlas Mk. II is the best bugget option for defending my colonies, since I can go to any core world's black market and find a pristine ship, the 6 burn would be bad if it was to come with me on a exploration mission, but since I'm twoing this thing to my colony to defend it/hit one capital bountys near my colony it does not matter much.
- The Legion(XIV) is the premium option for colony defence, since I need some expencive hullmods and rare wings, namely Heavy Armor, Hardened Shields and Xyphos Support wing, plus the restauration cost to remove the Damage hullmods, like any of the carier D-mods, the armor and health D-mods, and anything that makes it more expencive to field.
Overall I focus on exploration and colony defence, not aginst pirates, those were removed with the help of the Dram in the early game.
Endgame: Odyssey/Legion(XIV)/Paragon/Hyperion/Doom. This is where I aim my builds for, if I'm not using a roleplay build, like using Comand&Control 3, Etc...
- The Odyssey is my favorite ship in the game as of now, and I use it a lot, I also need a anvil to allow me to atack their carriers and the catch the enemy line in surprise, it is also the best rammer in the game, since it can deal damage on the hull hit and by opening shields (Odyssey build (https://fpdk.github.io/?s=0303132333405363708393x13001323314350607080x23001221334053x30001020304050)).
- The Legion(XIV) that was a expencive defence now has a strong ofencive power, using both buff wings and medium balistics, since the two large missiles are there for show, shieldtanking works really well and you can laught at the Onslaugths that try to aproch you using the burn drive because of the Xyphos (Legion build (https://fpdk.github.io/?s=0303102333405363708390x13001323314353627380x23001021334053x30001020304050)
, it also is my second favorite ship in game). - The Paragon is the strongest obtainable ship in the game, that alone should make it one of these ships (Paragon build (https://fpdk.github.io/?s=0303102333405363708393x13001323314050607080x23031323334053x30001020304050)).
- The Hyperion, the strongest frigate in the game, but very hard to control, and overal fun ship to deploy, specially when using a full on capital line, since you are the pesky wasp that requires atention (Hyperion build (http://Hyperion build)).
- The Doom is a fun ship to fly, geting a build to hit the perfect sweet spot is really nice, and almost impocible, since you want weapons that burn it's ammo fast enought to catch PPT, and not whanting that weapon to burn trough the ammo, you also have a choice betwen Defencive Subsystems 2 and DFS 3, since 1 and 2 are good for the ship, but 3 can change the way it's built, I use 2 because I whant to be in combat for longuer (Doom build (https://fpdk.github.io/?s=0303132333405362708393x13001323314050607080x23031321334053x30001020304050)).
Overall fun choices for the endgame, all can be used and all are fun.
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I play vanilla only.
For me, the first to grab is the Hammerhead. Solid damage lets me just take down more enemies. I move up when I find a capital ship, really any will do, but I'm aiming for an Onslaught. After that, Paragon.
I keep the Hammerhead all the way through, changing it via Safety Overrides into a pursuit craft in the late game, where it's still quite effective in that role.
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I must ask: what mod(s) are Marksman and Siegried from?
They are both from Seeker Ship Pack (currently stuck in eternal beta on the Discord server)
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Early game, SO hammerhead.
Midgame, SO hammerhead.
Late game, DOOM, followed up by SO hammerhead.
The hammy is just a top tier ship for flying. It does take combat talents to work, but most of the essentials are tier 1 picks. Impact Mitigation 1 (S tier!!), Advanced Countermeasures 1, improved turning and acceleration and shield flux. Those talents apply to just about every ship, so it's worth grabbing them regardless of the ship you wish to fly.
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safety-overriden sunder with 3 fuxking mining blasters strapped to the front, like an absolute madman
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safety-overriden sunder with 3 fuxking mining blasters strapped to the front, like an absolute madman
You deserve some Volturnian Lobsters, mate.
Highly recommend everyone try Combat + Onslaught XIV out sometime. 2.4k armor + Combat skills shrugs off everything except sustained high-alpha HE barrages. Much more exciting than a Paragon flagship.
I would consider doing a Combat-oriented run with an Onslaught at some point. I have not done something like that since the earlier versions well before the procedural generated star map and market economy updates.
That being said, I would not envy an Onslaught having to face a ship armed with EMP payloads.
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@Shrek_luigi: While I applaud your choice of flagship, please don't circumvent the profanity filter. Thats against forum rules.
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@Shrek_luigi: While I applaud your choice of flagship, please don't circumvent the profanity filter. Thats against forum rules.
I was surprised this was a thing so I went and checked and this isn't even on the rules and guidelines page. Might want to add it then since I bet people will be confused.
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Start with an SO frigate or cheapo destroyer. Use point defense weapons to max out damage-per-flux early on, they're good sources of kinetic pressure. Safety Overrides turn all bad ships into good ones.
Ideal ships: SO + hardened subsystem + speed hullmod + annihilator + machine guns Lasher, restored Luddic Path Lasher with more of the same, broken down SO Enforcer with lots of Heavy Machine Guns, etc.
Eventually find Something Cool. This may be a black market elite frigate/destroyer purchase, some modded exploration or event content, or a lucky kill/faction salvage. Sometimes it's a rare weapon that can define a ship. Proceed to build fleet, skills, and officers around cool flagship.
Ideal ships: plasma cannon SO Sunder, any of the modded elite destroyers/frigates, Tempest, Harbringer, maybe a really early Doom or SO Eagle, etc. My favorite modded ships at this point tend to have mobility abilities first, cool built-ins or ship systems second. I spend a lot of time drawing attention with minimal fighter cover and picking off stragglers.
Endgame is determined more by fleet composition, which is mostly a matter of faction commission or colony blueprints. At that point the flagship is complementing whatever the rest of the fleet lacks. I kind of prefer long range artillery boats with burn drive and auxiliary thrusters - dual Gauss Legion with shield bypass and escort frigates, dual Devastator Onslaught with mauler/HVD mediums, etc.
Ideal ships if modded: BRDY Karkinos, that underworld pirate flagship with the turret and burn drive, other artillery capitals. If the mid-game coolship was something ridiculously fun like a Sylphon Rakia (SO on it is amazing fun) or other phase cruiser/super-destroyer it might be my preferred endgame ship. Some of the smaller player-bait ships start to get tedious when you're grinding through large fleets, but phase ships with interesting mechanics never get dull.
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Some of the smaller player-bait ships start to get tedious when you're grinding through large fleets, but phase ships with interesting mechanics never get dull.
I favor phase ships with synergy for fleet fights like Doom for that reason. Phase cloak slows time, giving my reaction window a wide berth and a lot of space to spot opportunistic hits. The mines make performing hammer and anvil tactics especially effective against omni-shield ships, while popping carriers with regrouped fighters.
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Early game, I try to get an Enforcer or a Hammerhead as soon as possible. But at this stage, anything goes. Anything that works and brings the Bigger Gun.
Mid game, I'm usually in a Sunder, Medusa or Apogee. Apogee is the most economical all-around ship in SS.
Late game, it's either a capital ship or a Doom. As far as cap ships, I like the Conquest and the Paragon for different things. Odyssey is an old favorite but I haven't warmed up to it in this version.
I also cap ship fast hunter frigates for chasedowns, which may be a Wolf early on, but ideally a Tempest or Afflictor.
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Early- Venture
Mid- Mora
Late- Legion/Mora
The venture is basically awful but I like it. When i get sick of dealing with having to try I swap to the Mora which I love as it's decently affordable and can fill either front line or carrier duties. The legion does both at once, but I just don't like the largest ships sometimes.
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Some of the smaller player-bait ships start to get tedious when you're grinding through large fleets, but phase ships with interesting mechanics never get dull.
I favor phase ships with synergy for fleet fights like Doom for that reason. Phase cloak slows time, giving my reaction window a wide berth and a lot of space to spot opportunistic hits. The mines make performing hammer and anvil tactics especially effective against omni-shield ships, while popping carriers with regrouped fighters.
Doom has synergy with everything because it is really good at killing everything, no? :P
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Doom has synergy with everything because it is really good at killing everything, no? :P
Depends on how the Doom is used, actually. My other ships are the ones doing the killing blow, since my only defense in taking hits is armor. Charge and alpha-strike weapons works best in a Doom for that reason, and fighting a Doom requires consistent beam weapon use and mine busting solutions. Frigates can maintain pressure on an isolated Doom, though I used a few Tempests and Harbingers geared for anti-sub phase ship combat. Harbingers have the system ability to overload ships, even while phased.
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since my only defense in taking hits is armor.
Well, there's that, plus the going totally invincible in phase space ability.
DOOMs are fantastic ships to fly, but phase ships take a completely different style than ordinary ships to fly. Venting early and venting often is key, because there's no telling when the ship may be forced to stay under for a long time. It is for example very useful to vent immediately out of cloak if your flux is under ~25%. There's about half a dozen reasons to do a quick vent directly out of cloak, and you'll notice a huge boost in performance from doing so.
Big burst weapons are ideal for all phase ships. Antimatter blasters are golden, phase lances are solid, and pilums offer a mix to attack and defense. PD is up to preference, but if you keep getting hit by pilums then by all means invest in PD. All phase ships receive a huge boost from simple tier 1 talents, Impact Mitigation 1 in particular is S tier.
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I enjoy flying the hound for as long as possible. It's fast and nimble and with ACG it's a scary light flanker that can rip small ships too pieces or tear into the sides of distracted or surrounded destroyers and cruisers.
Once that starts dying alot I usually switch to a Hammerhead. Railguns, Heavy Mortars and Ion cannons are a good loadout tho ACG + Railguns and PD are also a good shout.
Late game I usually jump in a Medusa if I can find one or an Autopulse Sunder. Sometimes I'll use the Aurora but I find it hard to arm efficently cause of it's weird layout. But it's fast as hell and has a great shield
I prefer to stick to fast, smaller ships that can punch upwards in Player hands. I'll then fly around supporting my fleet and picking off weak or overloaded enemies. I dislike personally flying anything over cruiser size other than the Aurora.
Modded has a much wider variety of ships I'll fly though but my playstyle stays mostly the same.
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Among phase ships, Doom plays completely different than the other phase ships. Doom can attack while phased and can brawl a bit (by distracting enemies with mines then decloak while enemy cannot point guns at Doom). Other phase ships play mostly the same. For AI, dance and cower away from the enemy until PPT runs out. For player, outmaneuver enemy shields and alpha strike with Reapers or AM Blasters like a glorified bomber, then retreat when out of ammo.
Doom is fun to pilot and AI is dependable with it. The rest are annoying and I do not trust the AI to pilot them, and aside from disgusting Reaper cheese Afflictor can do, I rather pilot Doom or a big capital than a small phase ship.
I have no problem raising phase doctrine to two or three to cram more Dooms in AI fleets. If I do not have Doom, I wish I could set phase to zero because the small ships are bad unless I pilot them, which I usually do not want to.
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I'm the kind of player that values burst speed super highly (since I play like a madman), so my favorite is the Wolf for early game, Medusa for mid game and then begrudgingly switch to a Paragon once the firepower of the earlier two is outmatched.
I also like cheesing stations and capital ships with pin-point reaper deliveries using a few Afflictors.
For modded playthroughs my priorities are much the same, but this time around with my favorite ships in each weight class; the Versant, the Desdinova, the Nevermore and the Pandemonium. In particular the Desdinova is a beloved ship that I've used to solo entire fleets by abusing the incredible mobility the ship system provides. I honestly consider the Desdinova's ship system to be just as good as actual teleportation (i.e. the Hyperion), since you can easily boost up to people and unleash short ranged, flux-efficient fury in the form of shredder batteries in their face and then get out even when you're sitting at max flux.
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Try and get your hands on an Odyssey then Impetus! It has a great burst system and good firepower. Hard to find though...
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Try and get your hands on an Odyssey then Impetus! It has a great burst system and good firepower. Hard to find though...
Odyssey is great, but has a great weakness - it requires a good (human) pilot. No mistakes allowed.
I find myself incompetent piloting this thing. Shame.
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Try and get your hands on an Odyssey then Impetus! It has a great burst system and good firepower. Hard to find though...
Odyssey is great, but has a great weakness - it requires a good (human) pilot. No mistakes allowed.
I find myself incompetent piloting this thing. Shame.
What is your loadout? I often see this as a recurring theme, I have no problems wiping the floor with everyone using autopilot Odysseys. I think that the main problem with the ship might perhaps be that it doesn't have any synergy with most other ships, only with more of the same ship.
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What is your loadout?
Different. Experimenting a lot. Using a lot of other player's loadouts. Each and every time it is my fault as pilot, not loadout. Perhaps autopilot is better than me. Shame2.
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Try and get your hands on an Odyssey then Impetus! It has a great burst system and good firepower. Hard to find though...
I'll do so! It seems I forgot the Odyssey had a rework and changed ship systems, thanks for the recommendation. ;D
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I find that early game frigates just don't pack the OOMPH to make a big difference so I try and get myself into a destroyer ASAP. Usually my first main flagship is a Hammerhead as the Accelerated Ammo Feeders allow it to really bring the pain on w/e I want dead. I like to then look for the more rare Sunder and give it an Autopulse Laser + Expanded Mags hullmod, combine that with two light needlers/railguns and its ship system and the thing can just delete most ships that aren't heavy cruisers and up.
I get a lot of mileage out of the Sunder so mid game is kinda blurry to me. End game depends on if I went for combat skills or not, with no skills I like to get into an Aurora built for shield strength, high flux capacity and Heavy Blasters. I charge up front with the Aurora and tank all the missiles/fighter rush with the shields and distract the enemy while chasing down frigates/destroyers that get to far from their pack and pop them with the Heavy Blasters.
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Early / Mid changes a lot so I don't have a clear response there, but late game it's definitely the Aurora. The speed plus firepower is great, and chaining multiple Auroras using SO is my favorite way of playing the game. I wish I could get into capitals but they're just too slow, I only use them if the enemy fleet is too strong.
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Vanilla:
Early game:
Early game is very volatile so hard to say. If it is the Apogee start, then well, the apogee, because it beats any of the easy to get ships by a large margin.
If it is not the apogee start, then I usually try and snatch a Pirate Mule or Pirate Enforcer. The obvious goal is to get a Monitor class frigate ASAP, because of the insane capabilities to tank damage. You can even stand in front of an onslaught for a while, and that's enough reasons to fly a Monitor!
Mid-Game:
Save up for an Eagle or an Aurora ASAP (depending on which one I am able to find)
Late-Game:
I usually stick with the Aurora because I don't really pilot ships if it's not absolutely necessary. If it gets uber-late game then Paragon.
Modded:
Early-Game:
I try to muster enough forces to visit The Hazard Mining Inc part of the sector, defeat as many DRACO fleets as possible and salvage whatever ships I possibly can. They're not amazingly great, but seems to be the easiest way to bolster the numbers. My flagship will be whatever I can salvage. There's a vanilla medusa that's also quite easy to salvage in the list of mods I like to play with, but don't want to give away the spoiler as to which mod and how.
Mid-Game:
Again, Aurora, it's just that good of a ship. Although I always leave it on auto-pilot.
Late-Game:
I stick with the Aurora, Sarissa (M) if I can find one (Mayasura Navy mod), or some bounty ship from one of the mods that provide special bounty ships as loot. (e.g. Vayra's mods)
Uber-Late game: Caliph Class from the Kadur Remnant mod.
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Early / Mid changes a lot so I don't have a clear response there, but late game it's definitely the Aurora. The speed plus firepower is great, and chaining multiple Auroras using SO is my favorite way of playing the game. I wish I could get into capitals but they're just too slow, I only use them if the enemy fleet is too strong.
What I do know in the earliest part of the game is flying a fast freighter and tanker souped up in System Overrides and Unstable Injector to maximize chance of speedy escapes while have the operation range to perform multiple exploration missions in a trip. Helps in screening the entire for colony candidates while being economical in credits spending fuel and supplies.