It’s usually nice to have an Engi around to fix up the ship. Engi have quicker repair rates but aren’t good in fights. The Torus is manned by 1 human and 2 Engi. Once you reach at least Sector 5, you unlock the Torus. It’s a good basic ship that uses missiles to disable key opposing systems while blasting away with lasers. The one you start with is the Kestrel, which has 3 human crewmembers, a missile system, and a laser system.
Each spaceship also has an alternate layout, which changes the layout of the rooms (obviously) but also changed the starting loadout of weapons and augments. You also get a starting crew, loadout of weapons, systems and augments unique to the spaceship.
There are different ships you can use on your mission, and also different alien crew members to recruit. Along the way you will fight pirates, encounter distressed merchant ships, abandoned space stations and horses. You start off with a pretty basic spaceship, and your goal is to deliver some crucial intel to the Federation base in Sector 8 without being blown up by the Rebels. It’s a relatively simple title and is essentially a roguelike with spaceships. FTL was just released yesterday, and I am hooked.