M5 Scout

M5s are the absolute fastest ships in the game, many able to get in the 600-700m/s range after upgrades. Predictably, though, they are very lightly armed, almost all ships only having 2 or 4 forward weapon hardpoints, with a few notable exceptions (i.e. the Teladi Kestrel having a twin-gun rear turret). These weapons are mainly to defend the ship against other M5s, though, as the weapon generator tends to be low-capacity and slow to charge, making you choose between either the nearly-useless Impulse Ray Emitter for sustainable fire, or the stronger Particle Accelerator Cannon which you can fire for maybe 10 seconds straight -- if you even get the choice, as only the Explorer variants will possess the PAC compatibility.

Their cargo bay is tiny, making them incapable of using anything larger than S-size missiles (and very few of those, at that), and they mount only a few 5MJ shields (if you’re lucky enough to be able to carry more than one), meaning that they can’t take more than a hit or two from even medium-sized weaponry.

As a Player's Ship
As an upside there are few ships that can scout sectors faster, so I suppose there’s that.

As an AI carrier-launched fighter or wingman
Using an M5 as a wingman or carrier-borne fighter tends to be a losing proposition, as even with the Bounce mod to keep them from running into objects (without which a flight of M5s will be about as functional against enemy capital ships as a Wasp missile, and have about the same visual effect) they don’t have the power to kill anything, and blow up if anything from M4 up so much as looks at it angrily.

Sortable List

 * Cannot use any weapons.
 * Cannot use any weapons.