- poor (0.0..2.4)
- medium (2.5..3.4)
- good (3.5..4.4)
- excellent (4.5..infinity)
In fact, even in OXPs there are very, very few ships exceeding a rate of 6.0. (The only ones I found so far are some formidable ships in Assassins, that are not available for the player anyway. (And all of the All-stars ships are pretty good, with recharge rates of 4.75.))
Of all real ships (of course asteroids have a rate of 0.0, but they don't count) the Shuttle has the poorest rate (1.0), then follow the Adder, Sidewinder and Worm (and notably the Escape Pod) with 2.0, which I consider as poor.
In the medium range are the Annie (3.0), Boa (3.0) and BCC (3.2), Cobra1 (2.5; the pirate version however is good with 3.75), Krait (2.5), Mamba (3.0), Moray (3.0; the player medical version only 2.75), Python (2.5; pirate version is good with 3.5), Tharglet (3.0) and Transporter (3.0).
In the good range we find the Asp (4.0), Cobra3-player (4.0; interestingly, however, trader Cobbies are weaker with only 2.0, and pirates/hunters etc. 3.0), Gecko (4.0), Thargoid (4.0) and Viper (4.0).
The high-end ships I mentioned above.
The different energy_recharge_rates for different versions of the same ship raise the question which one should be mentioned. But as one of the main purposes of the infobox is to give the player sufficient information to help him decide which ship he wants to buy, it seems obvious to me that the player-version is the one that counts. For pure NPCs I'll take the most common value, if there are varying values.
I hope this system is satisfactory.