Rogue Squadron- Rebel Ship Rankings

Recently, I took a look at my favorite ships from each of the three factions. While that look was purely personal preference it got me thinking about how I might go about ranking the different ships in a way that was as objective as possible. How do you determine what’s the best ship? You could try and use tournament results but those are skewed. A ship might rock the meta for a while and then fall out of favor. Are the newer ships really better or just newer and therefore cooler? If only one pilot is ever used can you really say the ship is really all that great? If a new upgrade comes out and spikes the popularity of a ship does that mean the ship is now good or just the upgrade?

I don’t have answers to all those questions, unfortunately. I don’t think you really can decide what is “best” because there are so many different variables. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. What I can do is try and look at each of the factions and try to rate the ships on a few different criteria in an attempt to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Again, this isn’t about tournament results but an objective comparison of a ship as a whole. A tournament only measures what’s reported and what people decide to fly. Some of the results may seem counter-intuitive. You may disagree with them. But if this post does anything, if it gets anyone to reconsider a ship they wrote off as worthless then that’s a win.

Categories

Health
- Shields*1.5+Hull
  - This was done to account for shields being more valuable than hull
Capabilities
- Attack value + Defense Value + Arc Bonus + Actions + Upgrades + Special
  - Arc Bonus: +1 for nonstandard arc +2 for Primary Weapon Turret
  - Actions: Raw count
  - Upgrades:
    - One point for upgrades (System, Tech, Crew, Astromech, Turret, Title*)
    - Half a point for all ordnance (Bomb, Torpedo, Missile) or cannon upgrades.
  - Special: +1 if the ship has access to special ship only upgrades or limited access upgrades
    - Examples: Autothrusters or Space Tug Tractor Array
Dial
- (# of Maneuvers beyond base + #of Green+ # of Specials) – # of Red Maneuvers
  - Base Maneuvers
    - Every ship (so far) has all 2-speed maneuvers, 3 Straight and 3 Bank. These are ignored and all maneuvers beyond these are counted.
  - Greens
    - More greens the better the dial.
  - Specials means
    - Green Hard turns
    - White K-turn/T-rolls/S-loops
    - Repositioning actions
Cost
- 50-Median Cost/2
  - Since no (current) pilot costs more than 50 points, subtracting median cost from 50 gives cheaper ships more value.
  - Dividing by 2 keeps the number from skewing things too heavily in its favor
  - Negative point titles are factored in.