I'm fine with some types of ships just being objectively better than others. I actually expected High-Tech to be that. Why wouldn't more technology lead to stronger ships, right? I just need a reason that they are better, and a barrier to those ships to make it feel like progression. Maybe some unique downsides or requiring a certain economy.
Of the core game ships, there isn't really any ship that is objectively better than the rest. There are ships that are objectively worse, but none which are the best. Especially since "low tech, midline, high tech" aren't really cases of "more tech" but rather "design philosophy." There's a reason why both in game and lore "low tech" ships beat high tech, and continue to be the dominant force.
Compare the ships of each category. The majority of the technological differences come down to:
1. Engine drive options.
2. Crew requirements.
3. Weapon demands.
4. Defensive systems.
5. Logistical requirements.
But there isn't an objectively superior option between those design philosophy groups.
Civilian-tierThe objectively "techno-scrap" tier... It's also by no means "inferior" or obsolete. Drone tenders, venture cruisers or hounds may not be able to compete with dedicated warships, but they're not dedicated warships. They're utility ships that can fight, smuggle shielded cargo & guide you around the galaxy cheaply whilst salvaging and surveying your way to riches. Typically light on shielding & armour, fast in combat but with limited weapons loadouts, you really can't go wrong with a civilian fleet's vast cargo and fuel holds & light logistical overheads.
Salvaged Civilian-tierTypically the work of pirates or the luddic path, the salvaged civilian-tier is a perfect example of why the game's designs for ships isn't based around "better" or "worse" but rather "design focus." E.g. look at all the pirate vessels. They're heavily up-gunned, fast and come with loads of logistical support options based around raiding. Their ships are fragile hulls and melt when thrown against players or heavy opposition, but with the right control are horrifyingly effective. An Atlas MK.II isn't just the poor man's capital, it's the poor pirate's capital overloaded with ballistic and large missile slots. At just 24 deployment cost,
you can swarm the field long-range firepower that just annihilates far superior ships.Low TechLow Tech is defined by:
1. POWERFUL Engines. Whether it's Orion Drives, combustion Burn Drives or overdriven frigates, Low-Tech has all of the most powerful engines with the highest top speeds in the game.
2. HIGH crew requirements. Typically the highest in the game, average 2x higher crew requirements than high tech counterparts. Their larger crew capacities do come in handy for colonisation fleets though.
3. Low weapon demands, MAXIMUM firepower. The flux-efficiency and ordnance-efficiency of low tech weapon systems and hull deployment costs is unmatched. Anything that sits in front of low-tech ships just dies under a withering hail of ballistics fire, and you can field many more low tech ships in battle across vaster regions of space than any comparable fleet.
4. Lots of focus on armour & firepower. When a High-Tech ship is fluxed out, that's game over. But a low-tech ship is sufficiently armoured and flux-efficient in its weapon systems that it can lower shields and continue blasting until the enemy is dead. This fits with the lore of low-tech ships being designed to fight decisive battles against remnants and rebels. But it also comes with the serious drawback of maneuvrability. Low techs like the dominator or onslaught may annihilate everything in front of them and be fast as all hell, but they have trouble turning and if a mutually supporting battle line of low tech ships is broken, they can be picked off one by one by more nimble ships.
5. Low logistical overheads. Low tech ships are cheap to buy, cheap to run.
Chronologically, the developments of starsector shipbuilding develop much like how our own world's naval history developed. Two alternate ship-design philosophies emerge in response to the low-tech decisive battle fleet doctrine the Hegemony championed. Rebels begin experimenting with ships incorporating novel technology, like the Tri-Tachyon wolf frigate raids on Hegemony civilian convoys, or the Persean League's first attempts at making ships with weaker armour but more speed, maneuvrability and armour-piercing torpedoes or carrier slots. In response the Hegemony begins experimenting with battle-carriers, and even their precious XIV battlegroup ships begin seeing thinner armour and more focus on speed & firepower.
The MidlineThis leads to the development of Midline ships.
1. Like Low-Tech, powerful engines, the best maneurvability.
2. Lower crew requirements as more ship-systems are automated (the majority of what makes high-tech "high-tech" are these automated life-support systems which lower crew requirements).
3. A focus on versatile weapon mounts capable of mounting ballistics/energy weapons/missiles & carriers, held back by a lack of slots, ordnance points and lower flux than high-tech.
4. High focus on speed, carrier-strike actions & missile/torpedo strikes.
5. Reasonably decent logistical overheads and deployment costs.
All in all, the midline are a bit more than just the "jack of all trades" design school. Imo they make the best player flagships, as all of their ships are fast-moving glass cannons with a focus on missile/carrier strike actions, all of which benefit the most from player decision making. The Heron, Pegasus or the Conquest are just weird ships and tend to die very quickly in AI hands, but in player hands can act as devious hunter-killers eliminating weaker enemy ships screening slower enemy capital ships, until you're ready to go in for the kill with your supporting ships. If the Low-Tech school epitome the decisive battlefleet doctrine, then the midline are the battlecruiser doctrine.
High Tech1. Engines: Lots of experimental engine drive options, like phase drives (phase ships), teleportation devices (the dreaded wolfpack) and plasma burn drives (it's a small but cute detail that every tech-school of ships has their own coloured light-trails when they zoom around the map to symbolise low-tech's combustion engines and high-tech's plasma drives).
2. The lowest crew-requirements of any ships, as their ships have the highest automation on board.
3. High weapon demands, high flux requirements, heavy emphasis on beams, long-range warfare and experimental weapons like EMP arcs/phase mines/tachyon lances/entropy arrays.
4. High focus on defensive technologies designed to mitigate damage altogether, e.g. phase drives or the paragon's fortress shield & deep flux pools.
5. Expensive as hell to maintain, repair and deploy. High tech ships are typically outnumbered by their foes, but this is often more than made up for by a focus on high-efficiency. Most high-tech weapons rarely miss, and while you may be able to field more bombers from massed Moras than Astrals, the Astrals are able to generate more combat-sorties with their teleportation array in that same time.
Whereas low-tech ships can operate on their own over long-distances, high-tech ships are really constrained by their logistical leashes so strongly benefit from having civilian logistical support. Even the "exploration" oriented Apogee and Odyssey come with low cargo holds for an explorator vessel. There is also a rather unique design difference between high-tech and the other ships. Whereas low tech and midline have a lot of fixed weapon mounts, where the direction the ship is of great significance, high tech weapon facings are normally amazing with wide arcs of fire. E.g. compare an Onslaught's forward focus to a Conquest's broadsides vs a Paragon's nearly 360* arcs of death-murder or an Astral's ability to launch rapid doom-strikes.
High Tech has some of the most fun and best frigates, especially in player hands. The wolf and the omen are a must-have at least in some small quantity in any fleet for claiming those initial objectives and pushing enemy frigates away. The Doom lives up to its name with an officer whose got the extra charges specialisation (the AI will just dump 1,000 phase mines per second on top of enemy formations, annihilating them all). As long as they don't get overloaded on flux they should survive fights easily enough. A paragon in player hands is scary just because of how well a player can typically abuse fortress shield/aggressive venting to really maximise their lance power.
Overall though I wouldn't say there's anything conclusively superior at everything. Each ship and design school has some area where they excel in. It makes sense for the remnants and the space doritos to be absolutely mortifying because those ones really do represent the pinnacle of a space-fighting warmachine with unrestricted tech & no crew survival concerns. But both for lore and gameplay reasons it would be very dull very quickly if there was just an optimal fleet composition that was optimal for every situation