If intruders spawn in piloting or weapons it is a huge problem, even with the anti-personnel drone. The venting layout is atrocious venting through oxygen or doors is mandatory on this ship and you only get four airlocks (two pairs). It's handy that it's near the piloting and shields room, but it's pretty far away from weapons and oxygen (the people working in there you usually want to keep healthy). The 2-square medbay is vital to surviving the early game, because only a maximum of 2 enemy boarders can fit in there (so 3 mantis can't gang up on your poor Engi and his anti-personnel drone), but it becomes a liability later since you can't fit as many crewmen in there to get healed, or repair it quickly (especially if it's on fire). There's one aspect of any ship you can't change, though, and that's the ship layout itself. All of these problems can eventually be resolved through stubborn searching and upgrading as per usual, and at the end of the game you can have a fairly powerful ship. You also don't start with sensors, which is usually just a minor annoyance, but does make mind control a less practical option. Anyone who's played the Engi B knows its weaknesses - its starting weapon loadout can't pierce tier 2 shields, and is rather slow it starts with just 1 crew and the crew-drones can't man systems it has 1 engine power and no engineer so it will almost always get hit by missiles and bombs. It's important to draw distinctions between ships that are hard to win the game with, and ships that are legitimately powerful and just not as fun to play.ДЄnyway, I think the lead candidate is Engi B (although other contenders are Stealth C, Federation C and Rock A). There's been a lot of argument over the years about this (and of course the arguments were revived when AE was released).

Best ships in ftl