Oh yeah. FTL Hard is the tightest balanced game I've ever seen. You will make it through if you play perfectly, and nothing short of perfectly.
Are the C ships inferior? They're more polarized into extremes, but that's not all bad. Stealth C actually works pretty well with the shield overcharger. Slug C gets a ton of tricks in both hacking and mind control. Federation C with the artillery flak does seem more reliable than the others with the artillery beam. Also, all the C ships get a cloning bay, which I have come to prefer over the med bay, especially given all the events where it saves you.
Some like Rock C and Mantis C don't do anything better than other versions, but aren't really actively bad. Zoltan C is the only one that's really a pain, since it's so crippled whenever the battery runs out or some of the zoltans have to leave their posts for repairs.
I've never heard about events being worse based on difficulty. Maybe it's perception bias in that a bad outcome on Normal is usually survivable while the same on Hard can wipe you.
Are the C ships inferior? They're more polarized into extremes, but that's not all bad. Stealth C actually works pretty well with the shield overcharger. Slug C gets a ton of tricks in both hacking and mind control. Federation C with the artillery flak does seem more reliable than the others with the artillery beam. Also, all the C ships get a cloning bay, which I have come to prefer over the med bay, especially given all the events where it saves you.
Some like Rock C and Mantis C don't do anything better than other versions, but aren't really actively bad. Zoltan C is the only one that's really a pain, since it's so crippled whenever the battery runs out or some of the zoltans have to leave their posts for repairs.
I've never heard about events being worse based on difficulty. Maybe it's perception bias in that a bad outcome on Normal is usually survivable while the same on Hard can wipe you.