Best Ship for Hard Mode?

[Sines]

So I still haven't quite swung a run in Hard Mode. I might have had a good chance last game, but a couple instances of carelessness in the final sector cost me my crew. Right now, I just want to beat the game in Hard Mode so I can get a feel for the final fight with the Flagship, so I'm less interested in my own personal taste, and more interested in what ship will have the easiest time.

I'm sure there are a lot of valid answers, I don't think any of the ships are out-and-out superior (well, relative to the Engi B, maybe :D) such that there is a clear victor. I also feel confident that I can get any ship past the early game relatively easy, so if a ship is good "If you can survive the first few sectors", then I'm fine with that.

[SYSTEM GLITCH]

Go with the Kestrel. Solid ship through and through.

[Liy4b-Derg]

My one and only Hard victory is with the Mantis B.

[Sines]

I was thinking the Kestrel myself. Burst Laser 2 and Artemis are excellent workhorse weapons that can fit into any build you happen to come across. Likewise, the Mantis B and any other 4-man teleporter ship is also very tempting.

I am also somewhat intersted in the Stealth B. While it's a ♥♥♥♥♥ to get started with, starting off with a Cloaking Device and the Glaive Beam is very nice. Once you start getting shields and a burst laser or a flak cannon to keep shields down, it can be a beast. Total mess to start off with though.

[Liy4b-Derg]

I once made it to the boss fight with "Deaderation" C.
I lost because that was my first time making it to Sector 8, which left me unprepared for what I actually was facing.

The Flak + Teleporter + Clone Bay makes it an interestingly insane ship. Even so, this is as tricky (or probably trickier) to use than Stealth B.

[Skinny Pete]

Crystal B is the obvious answer.

If you don't have it for whatever reason, or you mean a more normal ship, Red-Tail is hard to beat. Kestrel is also good in that regard. Similarly, Mantis B is another monster.

[JPLRocket]

Mantis B, Crystal B. I particularly like Mantis B's defensive capabilities. They're so high that when you have teleporters at level 2, each encounter with an autoscout is an opportunity to max out your boarding party's attack skill early on, and once you have other crew, many other encounter types are similarly easy power-level opportunities. What's unique about them is that Hard will throw you the toughest ship types right away, but Mantis B can handle all but one of them, frequently without taking damage.

Anything with O2, without a medbay is easy fodder.

Autoscouts are training fodder once you have TP2. Hitting level 2 combat in sector 1-2 will make boarding incredibly easy for the rest of the game. Don't board any with mind control though.

Anything WITH a medbay, send a boarding drone, team up with it in a big room if you can, then rush the medbay with your mantii. 2 mantii can out-damage its heal. Later on, bombs, flak+lasers, or pre-ignited missiles are great tools to take out the medbay once you're boarded and the helm is empty.

Zoltan shields require a weapon, ofc. So that's the next priority.

After that, long range sensors are key, so you can zero in on as many ships as possible and max your scrap. With them early I got almost 50 kills without going to the crystal zone or farming rebels.

Other excellent mods are pre-igniter (with flak2 + glaive, this makes all stages of the boss a joke and you can skip boarding entirely, he's literally easier than normal), rejuvenating teleport is useful, zoltan ignorer is useful especially if you're using bombs--jump into helm, bomb the weapons.

Many advise hacking for your final module, but I swear by cloak.

Mantis B is great on the hardmode boss. Key is to wipe out 95% of the crew on Stage 1 by blasting the medbay, after which you can easily jump in, tear up the shields, and make whatever else you're using hit reliably. Try not to kill all the crew, they'll board on the final round and you can trap them on your ship, maximizing the time before it switches to AI vacuum mode.

https://imgur.com/uFUeDeA

https://imgur.com/Ljkhpu6