First off I'm new but here's my take on the ships.
Second, I assume the special nation-specific ships are still flyable by people who aren't of that nationality. Small impact on my argument if not.

My basic beef here is that some ships seem useless when compared to others with the same or lesser requirements ( license levels ).

So given that all ships are accessible to all pilots, at least once they put in the time to get the licenses and cash, the ships need to be designed to fill specific niches ( like combat or mining or hauling or prospecting ). And it's okay to make a progression of say combat ships where you upgrade to better ships as your license levels increase.

Now there's already a lot of this in place in the existing design. For example there's a pretty clear sequence of mining and hauling ships. But what I'm getting at is some ships seem obsolete compared to others ( remember they are all equally accessible ) and should be corrected in some way.

Specific comments:
- The EC's ( buses ) are exempt as they have novelty / celebrity status.
- The Centurion doesn't seem to have a role when you compare it's specs to the Wraith, and you can qualify for a Wraith earlier.
- The Warthog doesn't seem to fit any niches better than the Wraith does and requires higher license levels. I kinda think the Warthog should be available before the Wraith is.
- The Vulture is higher level than the Warthog and Wraith and is a lot more maneuverable, which makes me think it fits the combat niche. But you lose a lot of armor and you only get 2 S slots, so it's hard to say it fits the combat niche better than a Wraith.
- I assume Valkyries, Ragnaroks and Promethei are all useful because the requirements are so high, but I certainly haven't got there yet.

So my point is the specs of the ships need to be redesigned or adjusted so that each ship has at least one definite use.

As an aside, if ships were not equally accessible to all pilots you could have multiple ships with similar requirements and similar roles, and each would be used by the people who can access them.

Darkwater, there's much more to the ships than the stats. You'll probably need to fly them all for awhile before you can see the attributes.

For instance, the Centurion is blazingly fast with a low power drain - an interceptor. The Vulture may not have a lot of armor, but its narrow profile makes it very tough to hit. It is good for combat, particularly combat that doesn't require long distance travel (many variants have a significant power drain). The Wraith isn't nearly as formidable as the Warthog in actual use.

This isn't to say that the ships are perfect. More tweaking IS needed, but some of your comments run contrary to the observations of those who have flown the ships for awhile. Some ships have niche variants, by the way.

me muses... I wonder if they could make smaller scale variants of some of the ships...

Yep the profile of the ship is definitely one of the unknown factors for me. I wasn't sure how significant it was.

I just have a hard to believing that 1 or 2 S ports is enough to be effective in combat at levels C1-C3.

hehe 2 ports is all you need. The balance between agility and firepower is a major issue. Light fighters will have a bit less firepower (though dual axia positron blasters or dual neutron blasters do a LOT of damage) but they're agile enough to be able to avoid a lot of fire and aim quickly.

Right now, the Rev C Centurion is probably the best light fighter in the game (The Itani Border Guardian centurion is faster, but you have to get those in Itani space, too much time involved)

It has only 2 small wep ports. But it moves like a fly on crack.

in truth the stats of the ships are misleading, untill you fly a ship you realy can't tell how it wil perform, no matter how accurately you calculate the agility and power drain. Things that aren't listed like exposed surfave area, and the skill of the pilet have a much bigger impact than you would think.

Also there is s signifigant diference between what is good for PvE and what is good for PvP.

You have to be very careful when comparing stats in Vendetta. Strictly by statistics, everyone should be using Proms, Valks, and Rags in PvP, and pretty much ignoring everything else. But they don't. People gravitate to Proms, dual port Centurions, and Vultures. People should be choosing Warthogs over their nearest stat-based analog, the Atlas, but they... okay, they do. But I have a very good record flying the Atlas III and Atlas X against Hogs in a duel setting. In a multi-ship combat setting, it's not necessarily as good, but hogs tend to fall under my guns first.

(what they said)

actually, stats don't lie that badly. you just have to know how to read them. stats do tell you that the Atlas X is better than the Hogs, even before you look at forms. the stats also show why SCPs and MkIIIs are so amazingly good as they are, and why Rev Cs / IBGs are the only real counter.

stats matter. they matter quite a lot. but it's not the stats most people immediatly think about, and it's not the unloaded stats you see for the ships. the loaded ratios and the shape are what matter.

 terjekv,

i would argue that the stat's don't lie at all, rather they are incomplete. there are aditional variables such as what equipment is loaded, and the exposed surface area that have esily as signifigant an effect on perfomance as the stats that are listed.

Lord Q, what equipment I have loaded are part of the stats I work with. the only thing that _isn't_, is the shape.

this is why I made this thing public:
http://www.math.uio.no/~terjekv/blakdb/compare_ships.cgi