All o' the Ships (Work with me, this area is still under heavy construction)

Escape Capsule: This is the cheapest of the ships.  It can't even be bought by itself, you have to have it mounted in your ship.  But, this little gem is a lifesaver if you get vaporised by some big fat pirates, if they decide not to be mean and blow up the escape pod.

Interplanetary Shuttle: DO NOT BUY THIS SHIP.  IT IS SO CRAPPY, THEY PAY YOU TO TAKE IT.  This disgrace of a ship is slow, and has HORRIBLE control.  The only thing it's good for is driving into walls, and sometimes it's even horrible at that.  The VERY limited cargo space doesn't even allow for atmospheric shielding and an extra ton of fuel.  NEVER get in a fight if you are the proud owner if one of these; the thing doesn't even have a gun mount.  When you see the interplanetary drive, you may want to rip it out and bash it with a stick, but no, it's integrated into the ship's hull.  I could lecture for hours on the crapiness of the Interplanetary Shuttle.

Stowmaster Fighter: This is a new and improved escape capsule.  It has a 1MW pulse laser and a class 1 hyperdrive.  In other words, I'd much rather have this than an Interplanetary Shuttle.  The Turner Class comes with this, there's no other way to get it otherwise unless you hack it..

Lifter: This is the story of the lifter.  The engineer of the interplanetary shuttle fell down and hit his head, and when he came to, he invented the farce known as the Lifter.  This ship is a fancier looking version of the interplanetary shuttle, with two more tons of space, but still that integrated Interplanetary drive and no gun mount (unless you have a roll of duct tape on hand).  This ship also falls under the "so crappy they pay you to take it" category.

Osprey: This is a fast, cheap, tough ship.  Looks like a fighter plane, and packs twice the punch. You could stuff a 5MW pulse laser in one of these and have a pretty good ship.

Falcon Attack Fighter: This ship had a bug in the original game.  You couldn't own it.  That was one of the first errors in FFE that was fixed.  The Falcon is a mediocre ship.  It has excellent fighter capabilities, acceleration almost like a missile, but it can't stand up to much of a laser blow, and the internal capacity is rather small.

Hawk Airfighter: Another fighter, with slightly more space.  There is nothing that special about this ship.

Kestrel: I think that this a a cool-looking fighter.  It has a good amount of space, good acceleration, and good control ability.  I recommend this for your first major ship purchase.

Eagle MkI: There's three of them.  The first one is the Eagle MkI.  These ships have made major appearances in the "Elite" series of games.  The Eagle fighters themselves are great ships.  (They must be, if they are in all three "Elite" games.)  They have a good internal capacity.  The MkI itself is the original, so it is the lesser of the three, in terms of cargo space and hull stregnth.

Eagle MkII: This one is better, and you can see yourself through the bubble canopy!

Eagle MkIII: The best of the Eagle series, but I think that it doesn't look as cool as the MkII.

Sidewinder: If there ever was an "econo-buy" ship, this is it.  It is cheap, it has a paper-thin hull and only two missile mounts, but it has quite a bit of internal mass for its size.

Krait Assult Craft: If you ever get attacked by this ship, it is annoying as a little ankle-biter dog.  It flies back and forth and launches missiles at you, and you can never seem to hit the damn thing.  But, when you buy yourself one, you can dodge lasers in the same fashion, and piss off big fat pirates named "Bubba".

Gecko: There's one word that sums up the gecko fighter: misjump.  I bought one, thinking it was all cool, but after using it for ten minutes (real time, not game time), I had gotten two misjumps.  So, I trashed it and got a Krait.

Adder: There is a line between cheap, weak fighters and strong fighters, and Adder crosses the line.  (This metaphorical line is drawn between the Gecko and the Adder, as you can see.)  The Adder has a satisfactory amount of cargo space, and a couple of missile mounts.  I think that you could hold your own flying one of these.

Viper Defence Craft MkI: AWESOME SHIP!  This is one of the choice ships for the police force in FFE.  LOADS of cargo space, acceleration that would outrun a Saker III, and a lot of missile mounts make this one of the best fighter-type ships in the game.

Saker III: Nothing special is to be said about this ship, other than it's what you start the game with.  Get rid of this as soon as possible, unless you want to be victimized by the Mafia or the Federal military.

Osprey X: Well, they slapped two more wings to the Osprey, and look what they came up with. A ship that kicks ass in the free world.  I recommend this one for military missions.