Defiant-Class Escort

Captain's Chair:

Call Alert: Adjust alert by 1, or up to 2 if a priority action. 

Warp: Social / Technical / 1 Energy to engage warp. Standard on all ships.  This ship has Warp factor 9 (18")

This ship notably lacks the ability to inspire like the other ships the Federation has access to, making it a good target for a Galaxy-Class Address action.

Helm:

Impulse: Security / Technical to engage impulse.

Evasive Maneuvers: Test difficulty 2 with operations + Navigation to remove a sensor lock from this ship.  

This ship is potentially a very energy non-intensive ship thanks to Impulse being easy to do as a priority action for no cost.  Evasive Maneuvers are also a very easy test to do, with a high operations value for the crew.

Instruments:

Sensors: 2" in 360*, 4" + Sensor Value in 90* to the front.

Comms: 2" in 360*, 4"+ Sensor Value in 90* to the front.

Sensor Lock: Security / 1 Energy to lock a unit at sensor range

The 360* values for sensors and comms are quite poor, though the front facing sensors remain at a decent range.  This ship notably does not have probes as a standard item in comparison to other Federation ships.

Engineering:

Ready: Gain Energy equal to Energy Value plus the highest Technical here.

Green / Yellow Alert: Transport personnel within Sensors range.

A normal smaller ship energy reserve of 6, with only Green ** giving no baseline energy regeneration.  Your most efficient is yellow, with 3 Energy Value, but Red * still gives 2.

Tactical:

Fire Weapons:

Phaser Emitters (x3) - 180* to the front (x1), 180* to the back (x1), 360* (x1) - 1-3 Weapon Energy, 6" range, 1 blue die per energy spent.

Phaser Cannon Batteries (x2) - 90* to port (x1), 90* to starboard (x1), 1-4 Weapon Energy, 4" range, 1 blue die per energy spent, Pulse 2.

Torpedo Tubes (x3) - Fore x2  - 30* turning, Aft x1 - 30* turning, 1 weapon energy, Quantum Torpedoes

Phaser Emitters are fine, but the best guns are the Phaser Cannon Batteries with up to 4 dice and Pulse 2 for rerolls.  At Yellow Alert you can fire the Phaser Cannons with just 1 extra energy for max dice, or just roll 3 for just your Weapons Energy value, but at Red Alert * you can fire the full shot without spending regular energy, or if you have someone lined up in both arcs, you can dump a lot of phaser dice into them with 2 attacks.

Torpedos are pointed both fore and aft and are unlocked at Yellow Alert, and are already Quantum Torpedoes.  Fire away.

Medbay:

Medical Care: Test (2 difficulty) Science + Biology to heal personnel here once.

The medbay is just a basic medbay.

Cargo:

Ready: 1 Energy to ready an officer here.

Ready or Priority Action: Form a team.

Deploy: Security / Technical to launch a Type 6 Shuttle

The Type 6 shuttle may be standard for Federation ships, but that doesn't make it any less of a positive thing to have available.  Otherwise a very normal Cargo bay.

Hull:

The ship has 6 total hull with damage steps at 4 and 2.
Other damage thresholds of note are a damage card immediately at 5, crew injury at 3, another damage card at 1.  While this ship is relatively robust for a small ship, it does break in predictable ways.

The ship has a resilience of 4 for preventing additional damage cards.

Damage Cards:

Fore: 3, Fore/Aft: 1, Aft: 1

Warp Core Breach is bad, and is fortunately a purely Aft card.  Otherwise, it doesn't much matter the card pulled, all are relatively easy to work around aside from Armor Compromised being able to be place anywhere.

Shields:

Respectable shields with a respectable energy recharge, split evenly between the front and back.  An evasion of 2 means some shots won't even land, and the Defiant title upgrade can give you an Evasion 3 at a critical moment.

Crew:

At a full crew compliment, the Defiant-class has 4 steps down to disabled, and while it never has a "good" science stat, the first step down leaves it at 2 for the Medical Care action.  It can certainly afford to make a team without being inspired first.

Officers:

Of all the ships, this one is built for fighting.  It could benefit from a Worf running the Tactical station after being Q'apla'd (and giving a way to inspire the ship).  He pairs well with Dr. Bashir or Benjamin Sisko for either generating the correct dice for inspiration, or to get more dice with advantage taken instead of the crew dial if you're not full.

The Reliable Commander may be the best generic officer for this ship, as it can do basically anything on the ship as a priority action for free, or close to free with Warp.

Upgrades:

The USS Defiant title can be a lifesaver dodging an attack as this ship does not want to get hit, but committing an officer in the Helm station can be a significant cost.

With probes on all your other ships, you probably don't need to look into this the Class 1 Probes upgrade card.

The Denube-Class Runabout is a modest improvement over the Type 6 shuttle in terms of sensor range (and thus transporter range), impulse value, and warp value.  For just 3 points it may be worth taking as a more reliable way of getting your teams onto their targets.

Escape Pods could be an option, as this ship isn't exactly the sturdiest ship in the fleet.  If it gets caught out in the open by a group of Jem'Hadar, or with it's aft exposed, it won't last long.