What, pray tell, am I supposed to do with this "Lucky Ranger"?

sell it or use it as a "transport blocker" for one of your colonies.

(I shouldn't knock alien ship-building. The Torians are running around with fighters with 30-ish beam attack, and a few battleships that mass 80 beam, plus some minor defenses. My best operable hulls only mount some 30-ish missile attack, but I'm burning a lot of space on Ultimate Invulnerability modules.)

I'm enjoying learning more about how the AI reacts with time. I've spent a goodly chunk of the current game manipulating the galactic economy - I hand beam weapons around like candy, and have handed out most levels of beam defense, but have managed to keep my preferred missiles (and nearly all missile defense) out of AI hands. I threw together a couple "donation" fleets to help out weaker AIs fight against the strongest, and loaded them with mass drivers and beam defense, to try and influence the Torian ship-design towards armor, and away from missile defense.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And it's interesting to watch.

But I wish the lesser races would make better use of the ships I'm donating.

And, to return to topic, I wish finding an alien artifact of a by-gone age had yielded me a useful asset. Or that I'd found it 5 years ago, when it would have been somewhat useful.

Another demonstration of the patheticness of core ships. Rangers are useful sometimes, clearly you're too far into the game for them to be of any use in your particular instance, but I've had one before that saved my hide earlier in the game.

Just sell it, or as Skyjack says use it as a transport blocker. Or wait till you research Huge hulls and upgrade it or whatever.

rangers are only usefull when you find them early on before you can make them.

Keep it at a colony to block transports, then upgrade it when you research the appropriate technology.

Actually, I find them very useful, be cause when i was at war with the Korx in one of my games, their ships had lots of beam and missile defence, but alost no MD ( mass driver, for any newbies who might jump in) defence. I sent it after korx fleets, and it lasted 12 turns BY ITSELF! It was only destroyed when I attacked their last planet. Just before i invaded, a squad of 15 defenders attacked it, I still got th planet and won the war though. I'ts also good for sending it into enemy territtory, to see how many fleets they have, also known as "scuicide-scouting.'

In my experience it really depends on when you get one. I remember one game where I was just rolling out my second generation of medium hulled ships, and in a fight against a superior foe, I ended up getting four or five lucky rangers in a very short space, and they gave me the breathing room I needed to come back and win the game. Ever since then I have had a soft spot for the lucky ranger.

strange - in none of my 1.2 games I ever seen these Lucky Finds ever again- had there been some sort of notice of something happening, now all that seems to be gone

On smaller galaxies they can be ok. The main problem is the speed. Who would ever build a ship like that with no speed ? (The AI ?)

Even my small hulls get 2 engines. A capitol ship for me usually has 3 or more. They should just re-work the ranger to match what the average 10 year old could design.

On the flip side, as designed you shouldn't be able to win a game just by getting one.

strange - in none of my 1.2 games I ever seen these Lucky Finds ever again- had there been some sort of notice of something happening, now all that seems to be gone

I had never experienced one until the latest Beta. Now I am "finding" a RANGER every few turns. Usually, I immediately give it to my weakest ally.

This is a really cool feature from GC1 that doesn't seem to work as well in GC2.
In GC1 "Lucky" rangers and corvettes were (to me) more common, and definately more useful. The weapons and defenses were impressive and ship speed was tied to research. So when you found one, it moved as well as the rest of your fleet and had to be respected by other races. It also was a "Survey" ship and could be really useful investigating anomolies too.
In GC2 they seem not to be not as useful because now speed is handled differently. This is their biggest issue. Weapons and defenses may not be best against other races too. What this means is you get a big ship that you need to upgrade to be of any real use in a fight, or even get to the fight. Of course it is a big or "huge" ship so it does have plenty of hit points.
Trading it to a weaker race seems like a smart move, give them something that you over power and give them the maintence cost for the ship too. Not only that, you may even get improved relations with that race to boot.
Of course, I like the idea of putting it on a pedestal. Maybe, open it up as a museum and charge admission ... " Come one, come all! See the glorious mysteries of ancient precursor technology!"
Now if I could only seem to find one....

This is another feature from V1.0 that has been nerfed.

In version 1.0 you would frequently find Lucky Rangers very early in the game, often finding quite a few of them (I once found 7 Rangers in one game and 67 Corvettes in another). While slow they did tend to unbalanced the early game.

Now they show up to late V1.11 (or never it seems in v1.2) to be of any use.

Its the same thing with random events way to many in V1.0 now you hardly get them. Still remember the game where I was at war with the Dregin when apparently I hit on my allies the Altarian Leader Mistress and they declared war on me. Of course I had absolutely no ships on their boarder.   

About those ships. Must your race be lucky to find them? I've played dozens of games but never found one. But I've also never used the lucky trait. Might this be the reason why?

Can anyone tell me if you pay maintenance for those ships?

You're more likely to find ships with the lucky trait, but you still can without it. You're more likely to get one if your military is weaker than your opponent's.

AFAIK you do have to pay maintenance.

It shouldn't be too hard to make the Ranger more useful- just edit its weaponry in the XML file.

Sell it some chumpy minor race.