At captain rank, indeed if you spec it right,the cruiser was the best by far. Escorts are great for pure combat grinding (i used a Vigalent class escort for captain 1-6 and cruiser 6-ra1) but as the last dude said, you cannot treat it like an escort,it simplay wont happen. Cruisers make excellent Beam boats, but u have to get used to working with the flow of the turn rate instead of trying to fight it, reverse engines will be used a lot also. Eject plasma flow is great to help debuff and slow down the pve enemy fighters and escorts and frigates that would try and swarm around your aft side, as well as that science one tyken's rift to hold em in place a minute while u beam slam them. Use Range as a cruiser and 360 degrees of firepower, i recommend heavily arming your aft side because inevitably the AI of the npcs seem to favor hitting your cruiser from behind more than anything.