Within the fictional landscape (or space-scape, I guess you might call it) of Battlestar Galactica, there have been quite a few seriously awesome and inventive spacecrafts featured throughout the story. Some of them are super speedy, some of them are super cool, and some of them are concepts and ideas that had never even been seen in fiction before.
Most of the surviving ships of the human and Cylon space fleets were equipped with faster than light, or FTL, drives. Not surprising, since it'd be pretty difficult for a not quite as fast craft to survive very long in a war with ships that can move faster than the speed of light. But there were a few significant standout spacecrafts in this league of faster than light ships. So, if you were ever wondering which BSG lightning fast (literally) ships were the very coolest of the cool, here they are!
Raptor
As far as Battlestar Galactica spacecrafts go, the Raptor is an eternally useful utilitarian vehicle. It's not the flashiest or most powerful craft in the world, but it's one of the most commonly featured ships that is typically used for scouting and reconnaissance. Their FTL drives aren't the most advanced but they get the job done, and that is pretty well suited to the purposes of the Raptors anyway. Raptors are definitely functioned over fashion, but these small but strong crafts have been lifesavers for a lot of fan favorite characters in a lot of different dangerous situations, and it would have been hard for the humans to wage war without them.
Viper
If you consider yourself a BSG fan, then it's more likely than not that you've imagined yourself as a Viper pilot at least once or twice. These tiny, nimble spacecrafts are designed purely for fighting, and they're more maneuverable than pretty much any other piece of machinery in the Battlestar Galactica universe.
The Vipers aren't designed as a sustainable aircraft for long independent flights (which is an obvious weakness) but given how important the Vipers are in the overall story of the series (not to mention how many of the best characters also happen to be Viper pilots), it'd be a crime to leave them off the list.
Astral Queen
When most people imagine who they'd want to survive a nearly species-ending apocalyptic war, a spaceship full of criminals probably isn't at the top of the list. But that is what makes the Astral Queen such a fascinating entry into the world of Battlestar Galactica ships.
Like most of the surviving human fleet, the Astral Queen is outfitted with a faster than light drive that enables it to escape Cylon attacks. But the ship is also the hub of some of BSG's more interesting episodes and characters, and the addition of political prisoner Tom Zarek was a particularly inspired one.
Cloud 9
Traveling faster than light is one thing, but traveling faster than light in style is another. Every person who managed to survive the Cylon attack should be considered blessed, but the people who managed to escape the Cylon attack because they were on the space traversing version of a luxury cruise liner seem especially lucky.
Cloud 9, the flying hotel that survived the apocalypse, is definitely one of the coolest and most distinct ships featured on Battlestar Galactica. Cloud 9 is one of the few ships in the human fleet that allows some measure of comfort, and it's massive dome that mimics a planet's surface is one of the few environments that actually feels like an environment.
Blackbird
The world that the remaining human population lives in is one of the seemingly very finite resources, which is why Galen Tyrol's stealth fighter Blackbird is such a unique and cool part of the story.
It's one of the few human ships that we see that is actually built after the massive Cylon attack, and this stealth ship enables the humans to fight back against the Cylons in ways that they previously never thought possible. It's not nearly as cool as some of the other ships, but it's super impressive when you consider the fact that it was cobbled together with whatever leftovers the ship mechanics could rustle up.
Cylon Basestar
If Galactica is the ship that comes to mind when you think of the human side of the human/Cylon war, then they Cylon Basestars are almost certainly the ship that comes to mind when you think of the Cylons. The Basestars are essentially the Cylon versions of a Battlestar, but what differentiates them from a Battlestar is that a Basestar is an actual living organism. It's hard to say whether that makes them extra cool or extra creepy, but constructing a ship that can literally heal when it's been damaged is a pretty ingenious move on the part of the Cylons.
Cylon Raider
Like the Cylons themselves, one of the more intriguing (or gross, depending on your disposition) parts of Cylon ships is that they tend to be actual living beings blended with highly advanced machinery. When it comes to the Cylon Raiders, the Cylon equivalent of a Viper, they're an organism that could be somewhat comparable to an attack dog. The idea of having a small and quick attack ship that can actually think and learn for itself is a fascinating one, and it's a doubly interesting concept when you consider the fact that a dead Raider's consciousness can pop into a brand new Raider body if it dies, so they're really always getting better at what they do.
Pegasus
Of course, the Galactica is the iconic ship of Battlestar Galactica, but the reality of the situation is that their other Battlestar, the Pegasus, is an objectively better ship.
It's bigger, badder, and in a higher weight class than the Galactica is, and this faster than light ship has been the savior of the human race on more than one occasion. The Pegasus is a Mercury class Battlestar, which means that it's the best military spacecraft that humankind had (and probably ever will) produced. Obviously, the show isn't called Battlestar Pegasus, but it's still the best human ship in the entire BSG universe.
Resurrection Ship
As humans watching a show about fictional humans at war against genocidal machines, we're clearly meant to be rooting for the dwindling human population to wind up the winners. But if the show's writers really wanted that to be the case, then why in the world did they make Cylon technology so cool? It's not surprising that Cylon technology would be super advanced, but their most brilliant invention has got to be their Resurrection ship. It's FTL enabled of course, and it serves the exact purpose you'd think it would. It allows any Cylon who has been killed to reboot into a brand new body, essentially making the Cylons immortal.
Galactica
It's hard to surrender to predictability, but you'd have to question the credibility of any ranking of Battlestar Galactica ships that didn't have Galactica as the number one entry. The Galactica wasn't always the strongest, swankiest, or most unique ship that we saw on BSG, but this iconic beast of a ship happens to be incredibly powerful and move faster than the speed of light.
Saving what remains of the human race is a heavy burden to carry, but for a huge chunk of the series, Galactica carried that burden on its shoulders alone. There were plenty of FTL enabled ships in the fleet, but Galactica was the one that really felt like humanity's home.