Ship Scaling

Hi folks, was wondering if anyone had data on how they handle ship scaling now? Used to be during the sub only game that you had to have a particular tier of ship to be effective at end game content. 

Now the ships say "Minimum Rank: Captain" or "Minimum Rank: Lt. General" on the KDF side. Does this mean the ships scale with the rank of the captain? If so could one purchase a MRank Captain ship and be effective in Combat? The reason I'm asking is there's a gorn carrier that i would like but I'm not sure if i should spend the points on it since it's captain rank however  if it scales it should be no trouble. I'm not getting something like a lt. class ship because i know that won't work well. This one's stats seem close enough to a Tier 5 counterparts that I'm curious if anyone's tried this. I'm not playing the game on hardcore btw just having fun with the normal pve stuff.

Here are the stats: 

Minimum Rank: Captain

Crew: 1,750

Weapons: 4 Fore, 3 Aft

Device Slots: 4

Bridge Officer Stations: 1 Lieutenant Tactical; 1 Lieutenant Engineering; 1 Commander Engineering; 1 Ensign Science; 1 Lieutenant Science

Console Upgrades: 2 Tactical; 3 Engineering; 2 Science

Base Turn Rate: 7 degrees per second

Impulse Modifier: 0.17

Hull Strength: 32,500

Hangar Bay

+5 Power to All Subsystems

Tachyon Drones