Top-Tier Ships

The Top 10
'''While every player may have their own personal preference on what the best ship is in the game, there are many ships that are objectively better than others. The purpose of this article is to see statistically what ships are objectively better than the competition.'''

List may vary depending on how much emphasis you put on each category. This is an overall list based on the raw numerical values of all stats, so it may not account for specific jobs, roles, or functions a ship may excel at. Your personal weighting for different stats may also vary from those used to construct the list. See below for specialists and equation used to rank the ships.

Top Ships for Specific Purposes
General Purpose: Bloodstar

A good combination of armament, armor, cargo space, and equipment slots makes the Bloodstar the best ship for general purpose activities.

Exploration: Specter

The highest armor (not including the Rhino) and a built in cloaking device make the Specter the best ship for cruising around and exploring. 4 Primary weapons and 2 Secondaries is nothing to scoff at either if you need to take out a few pirates on your travels. It also has the most equipment slots of any ship allowing you to carry almost whatever you want on your travels.

Dueling (Dogfight 1v1): Groza MK II, Void X, or Specter

5 Primary weapon slots gives you 25% more forward firepower to take down single foes, not to mention the high armor and good handling, making the Groza MK II the best ship for dueling. It doesn't make the top 10 though because it can't really do anything else. If you don't care about that extra weapon slot, the VoidX has 4 Primaries, 4 Secondaries, Incredible armor, and the second highest handling of any ship (Best of all ultimate ships), only behind the Dace. The Specter is also a great duelist sporting a comparable, but notably weaker, armament than the other two, but comes with more equipment and a lot more armor.

Raiding/Looting (Dogfight with many opponents): Bloodstar, Teneta R.E.D., or Darkzov

The Bloodstar has the heaviest all-around armament of any ship, carrying high armor, 4 Primaries, 4 Secondaries, and a Turret, making it one of the best ships against multiple opponents. If you do not need the extra 2 Secondary slots, the Teneta R.E.D. has higher armor and better handling, making it another good choice for taking into a mess. The Darkzov sacrifices a bit of armor and secondary slots compared to the Bloodstar, but is significantly smaller and more maneuverable than either of the others.

Trading/Mining: Gator Custom, Bloodstar, or Rhino

The Gator Custom is the ultimate trading and mining ship with the 3rd largest cargo space in the game, only behind the Cormorant and the Rhino, but is the only one of the three that has strong combat capability. It can easily get over 3,000t of cargo space with a few Rhoda Blackholes and still have some room for other equipment. If you need the turret to watch your back while mining, the grab the Bloodstar. Grab the Rhino if you want to just ignore everything around you and focus solely on trade.

Math
The Following equation was used to compare the different ships:

Point Total = Armor + (1.5 * Cargo) + (75 * Primary Weapon) + (50* Secondary Weapon) + (200 * Turret) + (50* Equipment Slots) + (2 * Handling)

Turret has a large weighting because in addition to being a very powerful fighting tool, it can also be used while mining, docking, hacking, or to mount a Plasma Collector. Handling was also given a large weight as the biggest difference between values is only 85 between the S'Kanarr and the VoidX (only counting Ultimate Ships). Any built in equipment was counted as 1 extra slot. Rhino was excluded from the above top 10 as it breaks the equation from how specialized it is.

Trivia

 * The Rhino has the highest armor and cargo space of all ships, but is considered to be unfit for combat.
 * The highest armored combat ready ship is the Specter.
 * The largest cargo bay on a combat ready ship belongs to the Gator Custom.
 * Groza MK II is the only ship with 5 forward facing weapons.
 * The Dace has the best maneuverability of any ship in the game, but lacks the armor or equipment slots to be considered as a Top-Tier option.
 * The VoidX is the most maneuverable of all Top-Tier ships, second out of all.
 * The strongest overall armament belongs to the Bloodstar, as it is the only ship with 4 primary weapons, 4 secondary weapons, and a turret.
 * The Specter has the most equipment slots of any ship with 16 at base in addition to a built in U'Tool.