After about 20 hours of play, unlocking all of the captain levels and reaching a wave clear of 250, I thought I would share my tips and strategies regarding the game in general. Below are the builds I've managed 250 wave clear with...

• You should first try to unlock all basic levels of the captains and unlock all planets. In the Upgrades tree, put a single point in each planet, but don't worry about the other upgrades until you have points to spare. Eventually you'll put one point in everything for small cheap incidental upgrades and then focus on specific areas.
  
  
• After you have a basic point in your planets, and your main captain, spent most of your points to upgrade your space cube collection potential first, as this will speed up the entire meta progression process.
  
  
• Only upgrade the captains for your current build, but start with fully upgrading your main captain first and then one point in each section of your intended crew.
  
  
• Either Static Field or Katana are necessary for Endless mode past 100, but your main build should focus on 3 key functions, pick the powers that suit you.
  
  - Close range damage and collision defense. Gloves are king here on the front side, Static Field is a runner up and necessary for 100+ Katana does well once you have it upgraded a bit, and Fireball is also good at close range damage.
  
  - Long Range Damage. Lasers, Plasma, Missiles, Tesla, and Nova. Plasma and Missiles are best here in my opinion, Nova drops out in later waves. No matter how much you pump the damage, it doesn't seem to keep the enemies down.
  
  - Defense. All captains offer some kind of secondary bonus in defense. Boosts offer a certain level immunity and speed. Shields obviously offer a decent level of recharging defense to keep your hull intact longer. And Hull strength is your hit points which can be replenished from pick-ups. ALL THREE are crucial to your survival at higher waves. Enemies can do over 100 damage, knocking out all of your shields and breaking down your hull fairly quickly.
  
  
• Out-leveling your waves is important. You'll need to maximize both your time-cube collection and your gold-pickup to keep enough damage and defense to reach higher waves. The initial wave offers 4 time-cubes and a gold vault pickup with around 30 seconds of waiting for the 5th cube after you've picked up the rest.
  
  
• Level-up priority is important. As is knowing the difference between the gold planet pickup increases and the normal (Depicted by a U) gold pickup increases. I level up in the following priority with the exceptions noted at the bottom of the list.
  - Super upgrades (The orange ones, not the super planet ones)
  - New Weapons needed for my build (They have the NEW tag at the top)
  - Increased Upgrades (The ones that have Double/Triple the normal amount for that particular upgrade)
  - Crew Members / Good Crew member upgrades (typically a significant damage/defense increase) I skip the miscellaneous crew upgrades that might boost a secondary stat for their ability.
  - U gold pickup amount
  - Highest DPS upgrade for my weapons
  - Most significant defense upgrade (Shields > Boosts > Hull > Hull per pickup > Block Damage)
  - Planet upgrades in order of (Nova Cooldown > Nova Damage > Plasma Turrets > Plasma Damage > any other planet cooldown).
  - Anything else I might have missed.
  
  Shield cooldown and recharge are important and are included in "Shields" above. I do make a couple of exceptions for the Time-Cube shop. I rarely grab gold pickup amount, and I try to grab "Hull Repair per pickup" in the shop so I get an increase of 25 at a time otherwise the rules above apply.
  
  Gold per pickup might seem like it's in an odd place right above picking damage, but those are normal damage increases and leveling up fast is important the higher you go. You want multiple levels per wave as long as you can maintain it. You primary damage is going to come from your better upgrades.
  
  
• You can expect around 10 Time-Cubes (2 shop visits) per 20 waves or per boss-fight interval.
  
  
• Watch the wave counter. Every odd 10 waves (10, 30, 50, etc.) is a cage fight that is difficult to get out of without some decently powerful weapons. You can save the Nova Planet for these fights and for Boss fights.
  
  
• Likewise, every even 10 waves (20,40, 60 etc.) is a boss fight where you are trapped in a circle you can't escape from. If you watch the wave counter, you can determine what planets are inside the boss fight. Depending on the fight Nova and/or Super Plasma planets can be very helpful. Sometimes I try to keep the Time-Cube planet in the circle just to get an extra cube or two as the boss-fights can take some time and can be artificially extended just by keeping your distance and not focusing down their shields.
  
  
• When you get past 100, you are going to want around 70-100 hull repair per pickup because that's how much damage you can expect to take per hit.
  
  
• The Super Plasma planet is helpful, but consider this a noob trap for the most part. Use for boss fights if you need to. Spend most of your time circling just inside the border of the gold planet to maximize your level gain. Leave for - Space Cubes, Time Cubes, Hull Repair, Vaults, and Bosses. Otherwise stay here as much as you can survive to do so.
  
  
• After every boss fight stationary ships spawn around a random planet shutting down it's function and slowly destroying it. The easiest way to deal with these as Elites are going to spawn and come after you, is to circle the planet hovering over each stationary ship and slowly damaging all of them. As you level up and improve your upgrades, this process becomes much quicker, especially with the right close range weapons.
  
  
• Some weapons are early game crutches such as Nova. This is a great beginner power, but it lacks any kind of sustainability that will keep it functioning in the end. You'll need to swap it out with a higher damage power or better utility power, but up through 70+ it's a decent pick. It might get better if they decide to add a captain for it.

I hope that helps some players relatively new to the game and maybe even offers a different perspective to more advanced players.