M5: Scouts
Argon Advanced Discoverer - a great starting ship if you took the Argon Official beginning. This variant combines both the speed of the Discoverer Raider with the cargo hold of the Hauler and has more laser energy and better missile options than both. A fun little mission runner that can hold it's own in an M5 vs M5 dogfight.
Teladi Advanced Kestrel - another fantastic starting ship if you chose the Teladi Courier beginning instead. Not as fast as the Pirate or basic Kestrel variants but within touching distance and boasts double, or even triple their shielding - at 10MJ making it best-in-class for M5 aficionados. The tail turret is a nice novelty for an M5, the Medium class sized cargo hold lets you jump around the universe but is slightly limiting at only 35m³. Slam a pair of Energy Bolt Chainguns in the front end and a couple of PACs in the back and you can out fight anything you can't outrun.
Boron Octopus Vanguard - honourable mention, not the fastest and a pathetic 14m³ cargo hold but the best laser recharge rate in the M5 class, combined with average shielding and being cheap as chips to mass produce. Makes for great cannon fodder for your AI wingmen to pilot and put out at least a little damage and will causing a decent distraction.
M4: Light Fighters/Interceptors
Split (Strong Arms) Asp Prototype - I'll be honest I struggle with the M4 class, lacking the blinding speed of the M5s while still being very vulnerable and not carrying much real firepower the only M4 I've piloted much was the Asp and it's Prototype variant. I can see an argument for the Solano with Energy Bolt Chainguns and 50MJ of shields but the Asp is hands down better. The Prototype Asp can wield the deadly Plasma Burst Generators and has enough laser recharge to actually fire the PBEs it can mount which makes it a handy little light fighter to fish for free ships from pilots who want to bail when their shields pop in seconds. Expensive for the class so hard to justify building for AI wingmates.
Argon Enhanced Elite - decent shielding at 50MJ with best-in-class recharging of them to boot and a turret on the tail this is the M4 for your AI wingmates, works well with PRG and PACs but it's still pretty pricey to mass produce. Some people use the Teladi Kite to fill this role with it's 75MJ of shields but I find it's too slow; as mentioned before the OTAS Solano looks tempting but the Elite's turret really wins me over here.
Paranid Enhanced Pericles - and honourable mention to a slightly slower light fighter at 252m/s and again only a 20MJ shield but the Enhanced Pericles can turn on a dime with fantastic rudder control. These look great flying hooked on the outside of a certain M6 and are cheap and cheerful enough for AI wingmen to throw around in a fight and not feel bad if they don't all make it home from traversing a Xenon sector. Don't put Fragmentation Bomb Launchers on them. Trust me on this stick with the trusty PACs, rely on missiles vs heavier foes.
M3: Heavy Fighters
Yaki Susanowa Prototype - the Yaki starter ship, the fastest M3. I'm biased, this was my starting ship and I loved it to bits. It's not got great shields or laser recharge for an M3 but speed really is king when you're dogfighting. The manoeuvrability makes this a monster at punching down on smaller craft, snacking on M4s and M5s in style. Sadly much as I love my flying steel pengiun it does lack cargo space and doesn't like being thrown against superior numbers. I think of this as comparable to the Advanced Mamba and Barracuda, M3s designed for clearing out lighter fighters but not great in the hands of AI wingmen vs fellow M3s. For those we need...
Argon Aamon Prototype - with EMPC or PRG in the front and rear turrets and HEPT or PBG on the main guns this thing slays fellow M3s like no tomorrow. No slouch either at 180m/s, with a chunky 150MJ of shields and the fastest laser reload rate in the M3 class she's a beauty. She's also expensive and still only a fighter so don't let the AI pilot it against corvettes or anything larger, they do enjoy eating enemy laser fire far too much but in a fighter head to head the Aamon will be the one flying away after. EMPC in the turrets is surprisingly effective, keep an eye out for when you can pick them up and never forget the cargo bay hacker.
Teladi Enhanced Kea - a ship you bring as extra storage space inside or alongside bigger craft, can fire Tempest Missiles by the bucket load and earn it's keep the PRG turret slots are nice but the LX with PBEs in turrets and a bigger laser generator gets more hits on moving targets as long as they're close. Personally not a fan of the slower fighters, but as equippable cargo holds they are occasionally handy in a fight too! Maybe I'm using them wrong but I hate relying on missiles to deal with M4s and M5s while feeling like a sitting duck.
M6: Corvettes
Avoid! The Paranid Nemesis. Use the free one given to you in the story loaded with 4x PBE to spacewalk your starter 10 marines aboard a Hyperion Vanguard as soon as possible. There's usually one isolated in either Perpetual Sin or Sacred Relic, and you can repair your reputation with diplomatic agents or a few missions in boarder sectors after so don't worry and believe me the upgrade is worth it! The Nemesis doesn't handle cursor control for it's guns well, you're pretty much forced to use bore-sight fire. Other people playing on joysticks might have more luck as boresights work better there but fighting M5/4/3s in the Nemesis was a torrid time for me flying by mouse. I resorted to ramming smaller ships several times for story missions.
Use: Paranid Hyperion Vanguard - in truth most of the M6s in Farnham's Legacy are solid picks, decent at combat and tough enough to survive a skirmish with larger foes as long as you know when to fold and jump out. But as a veteran of X3:AP I still love the flexibility the Hyperion brings to the table and it holds a special place in my heart. Fantastic shields, a huge XL cargo hold at 3,333m³, two docking points for convenience or additional storage and a very respectable top speed of 169m/s, all make this a top of the line player M6. It's marine capture only which isn't too hard, your starter 10 marines can manage it. It's only real let down being the lack of boarding pod compatibility and a slightly limited weapon loadout selection which leads me on to the...
Terran Kogarasu Maru - if you've seen this ship you know it's not as pretty as the Hyperion, and the Maru also drops one of the docking points to broaden it's weapon loadout options. The Maru can use pretty much everything in the game; Terran, experimental, mundane, this ship can shoot anything. You can tell it was designed with the sole idea of being a player piloted ship to rival the Hyperion Vanguard. Spoiler - you get it from the secret Terran storyline, which you'll need to have built a Trans-Orbital Accelerator after finding one of the Hyperspeed Access Point with three player crafted Relay Beacons to trigger adding the 'Special Discovery' purchase option to Explorer Guild Agents. The first complex I build always tends to be a Microchip farm because the universe doesn't build enough of them unless you've got the patience of a saint. The second requirement for triggering the Terran plot is having found in total 750,000 discovery points, but you don't have to have this many in your pocket. As long as you've got 250,000 to pay the Explorer Guild Agent for his 'Special Discovery' you're good to go, assuming you can find an agent offering it once you've built your Trans-Orbital Accelerator.
Split Acinonyx Prototype - you just want to use Boarding pods? I get it, watching those marines waddle out the airlock and float about in space during deadly dogfights with laser fire all about is heart wrenching. Keep those marines safe! This is your M6. Quick but fragile with only a 1,500 MW shield recharge rate and a meagre 1,000m³ cargo hold but hey, it could have been worse - did you see the Heavy Nemesis with 600m³?

TP: Personnel Transports
Split Ocelot - any TP is worth it's weight in gold for the highly lucrative VIP taxi missions but the Ocelot wears the crown as the king. With decent shields and a respectable cargo hold, the only thing holding the Ocelot back as the undisputed mission runner is the cargo hold's L class limit stopping you from taking some of the transport missions that need an XL sized cargo hold, carrying things like Radioactive Waste and Engine Components. That said, buying an Ocelot is one of my first goals in pacifist playthroughs and even just one crate of extra Engine Tuning and Steering will make your missions smooth as butter. Grab a jump drive, a Turbo Boost Mk. 1 and you're set. If you really want a 'do everything' mission runner then grab the Geochen Miner from the NMMC at PTNI Headquarters beta and overtune it a little bit more. She's ugly though, you've been warned!
TM: Marine Transports/Mini-Carriers
Pirate Caravel - the fastest TM in the business, lightly shielded but able to mount PRGs on all turrets makes it safe enough against anything it can't outrun at a full flank speed of 214m/s. Honourable mentions go to the Split Boa, almost as quick with a much better laser generator but poor weapon choices to actually use that energy on, and the Boron Pleco boasting a good speed and a very respectable 1,850XL cargo hold. All the TMs can dock 4 M5/4/3s externally and make for good Jumpdrive shuttlebuses and handy mini-carriers for personal ships or mission request purchases.
TS: Transport Ships
Pirate Ship - perhaps a left field choice, only 25MJ of shielding means a stiff breeze could knock it over but it's quick at 154m/s, cheap and comes with a base cargo hold of 3,000m³ which if you wish to can be upgraded to 3,500m³. Why go for a cheap transport? Quantity over quality here. We want 20+ Universal Traders earning us income as fast as possible, paying off their initial investment quickly and getting to the good deals before the competition. The Argon Mercury and the OTAS Mistral both clock in at similar speeds and have much better shielding but have smaller cargo holds and cost more to manufacture. The simple calculus people us to justify taking the Split Mule or the Paranid Athena, beauties though they be, is Speed x Cargo. But most high value trades wont need 18-19 thousand m³, most stations cap out at 800-1,000 of their wares and the sooner they run out again, the quicker we're back making profits anyway. Keep them lean, keep them wanting more, that's how you get the most bang for your buck with UTs!
Split Mule - that said, if money is no object and you've the pick of the litter to choose from do grab a few Mules. 400 MJ of shields is enough to live long enough to jump away from anything dangerous that wanders into it. Just remember to set the emergency jump threshold to 100% shields so even without a scratch, as soon as an enemy targets your prized possessions, those jump drives are already spooling up to dash away. The Mule has just enough speed to outrun a Xenon Q which helps them live longer and happier lives than many Transport Ships but I don't advise using Mules for UTs simply because it takes them forever to pay for their own purchase and equip costs. Should some mercurial thrifty freebooter find a way of avoiding paying said shipyard fees then by all means use any TS you can get your grubby paws onto! A true pirate fleet is always a ragtag bunch of misfits flying cobbled together piles of scrap and we love to see it.
Paranid Snotra - sometimes you don't care about speed, you just want a mighty big cargo hold that can move something between places. The Snotra excels here, as Energy Cell movers before complexes become self sufficient, or in sectors where there's no silicon or the Sun's Yield is too low to bother. The Snotra strikes a nice balance of cost, cargo hold size and a reasonable pace beyond the glacial speeds of larger haulers like the Owl or the Sturgeon. If a transport ship can't outrun a Xenon I, then it's not a transport - it's just target practise for the Xenon and a sad little message waiting to appear in your log.
TL: Large Transports
Argon Mammoth - the second ship I save up for in pacifist runs. It's worth the extra money over it's smaller quicker brethren simply because larger hold space means more factories fit inside per run, meaning fewer jumps and clicks during the manual complex construction phase of the game. No one moves TLs around without jump drives so the Split Elephant might look great on paper but if your TL is being chased by a Xenon Q you've done something very very wrong in the first place. The AI is coded to gun for any opposing TL it can find, so keep them back, keep them secret, keep them safe. They are precious and they are fragile, so just like our UTs keep them set with emergency jump shield threshold of 100%. Skittish little lambs live longer if anything does happen to get into spitting distance.
I'll stop rambling here but do reserve the right to finish off with the M7, M8, M2 and M1 classes at a later date. I lean towards big shields and big guns in my capitals, while smaller fry can go fast to get in and get out, the big stuff needs to survive a slugging match and player ships can always be at an equipment advantage with the maximum loadout. That said never underestimate the Xenon Q, K or I. Overwhelming firepower and missiles will keep you warm and smiling! I'm sure there's things I've forgotten, ships I've overlooked or ones I've chosen to leave out for how far into the game you have to get, so by then money is no object and choices cease to matter. (Notice I've not mentioned many Terran ships? Where's the Springblossom? The Atmospheric Lifter?! What a noob!) But while I do stand by what I've written I'd love to know what I've got wrong, and where I can get better! Thanks, sorry it's become a larger post than I expected!