[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by Gwaihir:
I was a big fan of racial weapons for a while, but now I tend to use the standard. I haven't really found a racial weapon that tops the standard set if well planned - - - does anyone have a different opinion on this?

IMO, There are two outstanding racial weapons:

1) The Allegiance Subverter:
Once they get Ion Engines III, virtually *every* AI ship fits itself with a Self-Destruct Device, rendering Boarding Parties useless, if you want to keep your ship. And even if you want to destroy both your ship and theirs by boarding their S-D equipped ship, you still have to get through their shields.
With the Allegiance Subverter, *any* ship with a bridge can be yours - SD or no SD, shields or no shields, Security Station or none at all - and if timed correctly (fire rate 25), you can capture two ships per combat, per weapon!
And if you play a low-tech, tech-trading-impossible game like me (all Ice & Gas Colonization Techs I needed to know, I got from analyzing enemy Colony ships ), the AI will never use Master Computers, so you should be safe using the Allegiance Subverter all game long.
[/sales pitch]

2) Organic Armor:
Yes, armor can be a weapon.
Equip a nice, big ship (Battleship, etc.) with, say, 10-15 Organic Armors - if you haven't reached that Tech Level yet, a few Destroyers with 3-4 Organic Armors will do just fine. Then, Ram your target of choice (which should only damage the armor), wait one turn for your Armor to regenerate, then ram some more. So long you keep the boarding parties away, the Organic-Armored Rammer is tough to beat.