Boss Constructor: The Very Basics Guide



First and foremost: I am not anything close to an expert on this game. This is a very basic guide, based primarily on my own experiences during the few days that I have played the game. However, it should hopefully demystify some of the more confusing/unexplained aspects of the game, and give you some ideas on building your first ship and surviving the first few sectors in Exploration mode. I believe that the information provided in this guide is correct, but as it is based on my own gameplay and assumptions about game systems that are not always clearly defined, I cannot guarantee it.

While this guide covers some of the topics that it contains, you should also take a look at the tips for new players on the forums, where a number of players provide some more specific and very helpful advice for players starting out.

This guide was originally written to cover features and content that are current as of Alpha 3.2.2015. Additions have been made to cover most of the new features and changes up to Alpha 8/4/2015 (Patch 86). As this game is currently in alpha and is undergoing active development, new features and changes may occur that do not correspond perfectly to this guide. It is my intention to update this guide intermittently as development progresses, but it may lag behind certain changes, including ones that change major parts of the program. I am currently in the process of updating this guide to cover the latest July 2016 version (Beta Patch 174), although many sections of the guide have yet to be fully updated.

When you first start up Boss Constructor, you will see the following menu:



As of the more recent betas, the available mode options have been divided between three main categories: Exploration and Challenges, Sandbox Mode, and Miscellaneous. Some of the previous modes have been integrated into other parts of these sections (Story is now essentially integrated into Exploration mode, and the AI sandboxes are now under the heading of Evolution Modes under Miscellaneous.)

Exploration and Challenges is where you're going to be doing most of your playing, as this is where the meat of the game is, at least at this stage of development. The three main modes available here are Exploration, which created a procedurally generated galaxy of multiple sectors for you to explore, Challenges, where you can play through various small-scale scenarios to place on online leaderboards, and Endless Mode, where you attempt to survive as long as you can against waves of enemies. This guide will mostly be about surviving in Exploration mode, and most of the other game modes available complement its gameplay.

Sandbox Mode is what I would personally title Shipyard Mode, as this is where you will be doing most of your ship building and testing. Hangar is where you can find all of the player ships, including the default starting ships and any that you create. In fact, it is probably the only button in this row that you will need to hit, as it makes more sense to use the Random sector generation button from within the hangar interface to test a ship immediately after working on it. This is also where you can set up your own customized sectors to test your ship designs using Skirmish mode.

The Miscellaneous tab now contains three main sections: Tutorial, Evolution Modes, and probably the most important, Research. The tutorial walks you through some of the basics of the game, and is a good place to start getting a feel for playing, with this guide intending to provide some additional strategies and explanation where it leaves off. Evolution Modes is where all of the AI ship-evolution scenarios now reside, and these modes can be used to both simulate battles for your enjoyment, and use the game's evolution mode to hone your own ship designs through its natural-selection algorithm.

While in previous versions there was a setting that allowed you to build ships with all available modules in the hangar, you now start with only the basic modules, and unlock more advanced ones using research points (this is done by "researching" enemy ships in Exploration mode, by which I mean blowing them to smithereens and acquiring the modules they drop to gain knowledge of their designs and variants) Not only does unlocking a module make it available for building in the hangar, it also should unlock the ability to salvage better modules of that type in Exploration mode, so it's a good idea to unlock you favorite parts as soon as possible (my personal recommendations: unlock firework (now fragmentation) gun, missile array, and laser first).

To get started in Exploration mode, click on its button. This will bring up a window where you can resume a previous game or start a new one. Once you start the game, you will be asked to name your game file. Name it and hit enter, and you will be brought to the setup screen:


Here, you can choose from several different difficulty levels. These levels affect the following two things: STR, which is the strength of the generated enemies relative to your own, and SR, which is the rate at which pieces that are blasted off of your own ship will appear in space for you to salvage. I would strongly recommend setting this to Easy if you're just getting started, as this will let you get used to the mechanics of the game while allowing you to (hopefully) survive the trial and error of figuring out which type of ships work well for your play style.

You can also choose the galaxy size, which allows you to determine how many sectors (i.e. individual battlefields) you will encounter in the galaxy. Setting this value higher will take longer to complete, but as it has more battles, it may give you more chances to acquire better equipment in each area before moving on to a more difficult sector.

Below this is where you can choose the starting ship: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, or whatever your last-edited ship in the Hangar is (as long as the total ship value is under 500 credits). We'll get to this much more in-depth in the next sections.

You also get to choose a bonus pack of gear that you can add onto your default-configuration ship before you head out. Each of the options contains a different set of equipment you can add onto your starter ship:

Utility: a repair bot that can repair damaged components before they break off, two items that increase the likelihood that a module will be recoverable when blasted off, a grappling hook that can draw other ships in, and a container to collect ore, which can be used to purchase things in-game. Good if you want to salvage, and the repair bot is very useful, but doesn't provide a whole lot of bonuses to survivability overall, so you may want to save this for a more experienced run.

Weapons: gets you two of the basic weapons sets, fireball (i.e. blaster) and guided missiles, to add on to your ship. Good for doing a lot of damage off the bat; however, since your starting ship doesn't have a ton of energy, you can only fire them for so long before running out. Because of that, it's not the most survivable of bonuses, unless you're confident enough in your piloting skills that you know you can hit the enemies before they can hit you.

Defense: gets you two shields, two extra armor plates, and a mine layer. The mine layer eats a ton of energy and isn't really useful until you have some more energy-producing modules on your ship, but the other items can aid your survivability a lot, especially if they're tactically placed (and you can sell the mine layer for a good amount at a module trader and potentially get something pretty decent in return). The shield can absorb a good bit of fire directed their way, and the armor is good to protect critical components that aren't as protected on a default ship.

Energy: gets you a couple of extra solar panels to generate energy, a battery to store more when it's not being used, an energy absorber to leech energy from nearby enemies, and an extra command center (i.e. ship core). This is a pretty good combo for survival, as it has a lot of bulky items that can shield others in a pinch (the command center in particular is valuable - a ship that loses all of its command centers is destroyed, so having an extra one means you can potentially take more hits and maybe still survive). It also means you'll probably have enough energy to fire your weapons and engines at the same time, which is often key. This is the bonus pack I've been most successful with thus far.

Drive: gets you two additional engines, two thrusters (that fire in short bursts and then need to cool down), and a nameplate, which is basically just another light armor piece. Can give you enough maneuverability to have a better shot at some enemies, but also eats energy quickly. Probably most useful once you're fairly adept at piloting and are used to balancing the energy demand between weapons and thrusters.

In Exploration mode, there are three default starting ships that you can choose from: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.



Alpha is basically a ship built around the concept of speed. It has effectively no armor to speak of, and a single pair of forward-facing fireballs as its starting offensive weapons, but its six rocket engines make it the nimblest of the starting ships. Due to the combination of its speed and limited weaponry, it takes some skill to pilot. It also over-uses its energy supply just a bit, so your shots will need to be on target for it to be effective. You may want to take the defense or energy bonus packs to beef up some of its deficiencies and make it more survivable, and make sure to equip any salvaged weapons as soon as you come across them to shore up its offense.



Beta is a ship built primarily around defense, although it is slightly better armed than Alpha: in addition to the fireballs, it has a rear-facing scatter gun to deter pursuing enemies. It also features a front-facing shield that can be activated at the cost of energy, and heavy armor protecting its engines. It does, however, have less thrust, and is a bit tougher to pilot out of harm's way. On the other hand, though, it can actually take a bit of a beating without giving in. For maximum survivability you can add the defense bonus, or take the Utility bonus for the repair bot to give you a well-rounded defense.



Gamma doesn't have a whole lot of defense or speed, but it packs the most firepower of the default starting ships: two guided missile launchers and a powerful Resonance Cannon in place of the fireballs. However, because it lacks both the evasive speed of Alpha and the heavy defenses of Beta, it is a ship where you'll have to shoot first. As such, you might want to pick up the Drive bonus to give it a little more closing speed or Defense to give it a little more protection.



Delta is essentially set up to be a "ramming" ship - it contains a ship setup designed entirely for forward thrust, no firable weapons at all, and an armor setup arrayed entirely to the front, forming a sort of spike that can be used to ram into other ships and destroy them via collision damage. However, this setup does not allow at all for precise maneuvering because of the thruster design, and is insanely vulnerable to being disabled and destroyed by ships coming in from other directions. For this one, I would recommend the Weapon bonus pack to provide a chance to at least engage other attackers, or Defense to give some protection from other angles.



Epsilon is your best bet if you're interested in running a Carrier build early on. Aside from a couple of scatterguns for close-in defense, this ship's main weapon is the Carrier module, which deploys short-range interceptor drones to attack the enemy in an autonomous swarm. Each drone can take some damage, and shoot fireballs. That being said, this design sacrifices armor and leaves your engines very vulnerably positioned, so Defense is probably required here, or barring that something like Energy or Utility with bulky modules that can serve as at least some protection for the vulnerable thruster rockets. Also keep in mind that Epsilon is the one build that doesn't come with an ore container, so you may want to seriously consider the Utility pack to give you that collection capability early on.

After several playthroughs, I've found that the default setup that works best for me is to start with the Gamma ship, along with the Energy bonus pack. The extra command center provides for some much-needed extra defense, and the solar panels provide a little extra too while giving you enough power to reliably fire the starting weapons set. While maneuverability starts off a bit limited, thrusters drop regularly enough, and this setup forms a good core to obliterate easy ships early on so that you don't end up pulverized or stranded after a sector or two.

Any of these ships will allow you to get a decent start, depending on your play style. However, for the best experience, you may find that things go better if you don't start off in Exploration mode immediately with a default ship, and instead head over to the Hangar and try building your own custom version...

If you want to start out in Exploration mode with a ship that's a little more adventurous than the default archetypes, there's only one place to head: the Hangar, where all player ships are made.


This is the main Hangar interface, showing all of the currently available ships. If you want to start off with one of the standard archetypes and iterate on it, click the wrench icon on the ship you want to work on, and it'll create a copy for you to edit. Or, if you want to start from scratch, click on the large wrench to create a new ship.


This is what the ship-editing window looks like, complete with an experimental starter ship that I'm testing out (no ore storage and a set of engines that are barely maneuverable, but heavily armored, and a duo of solid weapons that pack a heavy punch - a laser and a firework launcher).

There are three main toolbars on the right side: Inventory, Module, and Ship Statistics. The most important thing to consider immediately for our purposes is the ship cost display: for a ship to be available in Exploration mode as a starter ship, the total cost must be below 600 credits (although ships under 800 credits can show up as in-game allies).


The most important part is in the top right, which is the inventory where you will pull all your ship parts from. You can choose any combination as long as you stay within the cost limit, and as long as there is at least a command center and some engines. Initially, this inventory will only contain fairly basic parts (command center, solar panels, engines, basic armor and armaments), but as you research more parts under the Research button, they will appear here for you to use. All parts in the hangar mode are considered to be "common" parts, as opposed to Exploration mode, where different grades of parts are present.

When you drag out a part, it will display on the design grid, although all parts have to be touching to be included, or the design will be considered invalid and won't be playable. Also, certain modules have to be connected in certain orientations (i.e. the business end of engines and weapons have to be pointing away from the ship).


This is where the next toolbar down, the Module bar, comes in handy - the two curving arrows in its bottom left allow you to rotate parts into their correct orientation. When a module is selected, the buttons next to it also allow you to set up a specific key binding for the active modules (this is usually automatically mapped to the arrow keys to run the engines and WASD for directional weapons, but you can map them to whatever you like).


Below that is the stats screen, where you can set up the ship's name, and see its statistics in three main categories: General, Speed, and Energy, each with a status assigned to them. If all of the statuses are listed in green, you're good to go, although if Speed or Energy are yellow, it's still survivable, but you will feel the difference. If you can end up with one or no yellow status entries and a cost under 500, you should be good to go.

Some general ship design tips: making things symmetrical is good, especially when it comes to engines, or your ship may end up spinning strangely when you try to pilot it :) In fact, having engines facing both front and back is more or less essential to proper maneuverability - you can get away with having engines on only one side, but the turn rate will be glacial. Also, weapons and engines are the key points in your design, engines especially - if you lose your weapons in a tough battle but still take out the enemy, you can flee to the system exit, but if you lose your engines you're a sitting duck - and if you lose all but one, or lose significantly more engines on one side than the other, you'll end up doing nothing but spinning in circles. Therefore, always protect both your weapons and engines, preferably with armor, but any other modules around them to protect them will do in a pinch. You can survive and escape if you lose a solar panel or two, so they should go on the outside, not the engines. Also, weapons close to the center of the ship generally make them easier to aim - cluster them close if you have good aim and want to get maximum impact, or space them apart a little if your aim is less certain but you want at least something to hit (or use guided missiles, which aim themselves and can be placed anywhere). Placing one back-facing weapon can also be helpful if an enemy is chasing you.

There are a lot of exotic modules that you can use in the inventory once they're unlocked, but for a starter ship I would recommend keeping it simple, and only going exotic when choosing the specific weapons that cater to your play style. For the rest, go for the basics - a good complement of rocket engines, some titan armor, plenty of solar panels, maybe a battery or two. Also consider picking up an ore container, as they're cheap, can double as impromptu armor over a large area, and allow you to collect ore to buy/acquire better modules later on. (As of more recent updates, an ore container should no longer be considered optional, as some sectors have missions that cannot be cleared without them.)

Once you have your ship ready, you should probably test it out. Hit the Test button at the top of the screen to load up a test sector with some target crates, where you can fly around and try out your build's weapons and maneuverability. Or, you can use the Random button to load into a "live" sector with enemies, although as it's random the enemies may quickly stomp all over your starter craft. Also, when doing the testing, try adding on the components from the starting bonuses to your base craft and see how it performs with them added, to determine which bonus is the best to take when starting in Exploration mode (although be sure to remove them again before leaving the hangar, or the ship will be too expensive to choose as a starter).

Also remember that if you want to let the game try to generate optimized versions of your ship, you can use the Evolve button on the main page and select your ship as the active target. Once you've run the evolutions, you can import them back into the hanger. Just make sure that the evolved one you want to use is still within the 500-credit limit - the evolution process might have added modules that take it over the threshold, so you may have to selectively remove a couple of things to bring it back in range.

This is the main screen in Exploration mode: the map of the generated galaxy. As of more recent updates, you can also use your mouse to zoom and pan across the galaxy to explore it in more detail. Your ship is shown in green at the bottom in its starting system - from there, you can choose from the few linked nodes nearby. Hovering your mouse over one of the linked nodes will show some basic info about the sector:



The sector info box has been revamped in more recent builds, showing the sector background image as the backdrop, and changing the order of various information. Enemies present in the sector are now shown cascading down from the top left of the info box, with "featured" enemies at the top, each labeled with a small letter to denote their type. "F" denotes a factory, which will continue to create new ships until it is destroyed. "B" denotes a miniboss, a large, heavily-armed ship that usually features weapons on auto-aim joints, but is slower and can be avoided by an agile ship. "S" denotes a station, which is fairly heavily armored and features massed missile weapons, but is completely stationary - a careful ranged approach can take one down, and it is often beneficial to do so, as they can release several parts and a lot of ore when destroyed.

Other common enemies follow, with arrows denoting their strength - an up arrow denotes a ship higher in value than yours, and a down arrow one with a lower value. No arrows means that the ship is roughly on par with yours, and additional arrows in either direction indicates a ship much higher or lower than your level. Look at the ships and levels carefully before entering a sector, to make sure you have enough power to take them on. There are usually multiple sectors available, and taking on weaker sectors first can often mean having additional parts to bolster your ship for the tougher ones.

Along the bottom of the info box are the amenities that a system can have. A station with a dollar sign on it is a trading station, usually specializing in a particular category of parts. A more triangular station is an upgrade station, where you can use ore to improve the quality of different parts. A station with three ore pictured in the center of it is a casino - hovering over it will spend three ore if you have it, and dispense a random part with random quality. Both trading and upgrade stations can also, if you defeat all enemies in their sector, be added to your "collection" of trading stations (in the traders tab on the top of the right toolbar), and can then be accessed any time you return to the galaxy map (otherwise, they can only be accessed when you are in the sector itself, so it makes sense to clear sectors with traders in them to allow for easier access).

Before you select the first node to travel to, remember to use the Edit Ship button in the lower right to bring up your starter ship, and add on the bonus pack items in your inventory - making sure to do this will help your survivability immensely in the first few sectors you explore.

Once you select one of the nodes to travel to, clicking on it will take you to the "sector" map: a zoomed-out overview of the specific section of space:


Pressing any key will warp you into the sector and begin play. For now, this mainly consists of exploring the sector - you have to kill one enemy and retrieve its key to open the warp gate, which allows you to leave the sector and progress to a new point on the overview map. Remember, though, that if a sector has a trader in it, it's better to wipe out all the enemies if you can in order to add the trader to your collection.

Along the right side are modules displaying your current mission, your inventory to show any modules you pick up during combat, your ship and module status (hint: red boxes are bad), and a minimap showing points of interest (the arrow circle is the exit gate, the exclamation points are modules and caches you can salvage, the moving red dots are enemies and the stationary red dots are mines, the other dots are usually asteroids - also visible are nebulas that slow you and drain your energy, which you should usually try to steer clear of). It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the minimap and keep an eye on it at all times, as knowing where your enemies are is key to avoiding potentially dangerous ambushes, or encountering an enemy in a dangerous area (like a minefield or densely-packed asteroids).

Those are the basics of the battlefield - next, we'll tackle piloting, basic combat, and some early survival tips.

The most important thing you can learn in the game is how to cleanly pilot your ship - even with the best weapons and armor, blundering headlong into asteroids can damage you just as quickly as being blasted by an enemy ship.

Navigation in Boss Constructor is based generally on 2D space physics, including inertia, with the directional controls being tied to fore and aft thruster groups in a way that's not entirely unlike tank controls - forward fires the back engines and reverse fires the front ones, and to turn left the left front and right rear engines fire (and the opposite for right). Because of this, your ship controls the best if your engine groupings are symmetrical - place all your engines on one side of your central axis, and no matter what controls you hit, all you're going to do is travel in a big, lazy circle. Even if the engines are symmetrical, though, the ships still control like, well, something weighty flying through space, so if you're coming from another 2D space title you might need to get acclimated to the more deliberate way that ships maneuver in this game.

Because of that, before jumping in to exploration mode it's a good idea to practice maneuvering in a test sector, which allows you to get used to the basic navigation around passive hazards like asteroids before dealing with enemy ships trying to simultaneously attack you. In combat, maneuverability is at least as important as raw firepower, and as most weapons fire in a fixed trajectory, being able to aim your ship properly is crucial.

It also makes sense to try out different numbers of engines, to see which speed of maneuvering best suits your play style. Also keep in mind that in this game, speed isn't always better and sluggish turning is not always a bad thing - it means less technical maneuverability, but it also means you're less likely to overturn when trying to line up your weapons, and with inertia, it's not as easy to just turn back around if you miss on the first strafe.

Ultimately, it's up to you to find the configuration that really works for how you want to pilot, but once you can reasonably avoid asteroids and hit your targets, you're probably ready to jump into a live sector in Exploration mode.

Before you get to taking on enemy ships, though, you first need to deal with the "passive" threats in a sector that you will also have to interact with while fighting them:



Asteroids - not much to them, they float around much as they do in the game of the same name - if you shoot them enough, they'll break apart into smaller ones too. However, one of them slamming into you can do as much damage as several shots from some weapons, and running into them can lead to a broken ship very quickly. Once you have a larger ship with a lot of weapons, you can blast your way through, but when you're starting out evasion is very important. If one is coming your way, remember that holding off for a second can recharge your thrusters if you have them to give an extra burst of speed to escape, and if you have forward-facing engines, a quick reverse burn can get you out of some close calls. If you have a nimble enough ship you can thread a path through a moderately dense field, but it's usually not worth the risk as opposed to waiting for the field to open up enough to safely approach your objective. Subspace drives are also very handy at field navigation, as they can give you a quick burst of speed to dart through gaps before they close.

Also keep in mind that every once in a while you will find an "asteroid base" - it looks a little different on the minimap, like an asteroid with pipes coming out of it, and when you approach it it will release swarms of carrier drones to attack your ship. Blowing it up, though, usually rewards you with ore, but beware of taking them on until you have a fairly capable ship.



Mines - these explode in a expanding circle of fireball shots if you get too close to them. Avoiding them entirely is best, but if you can't, try to shoot them at the edge of your weapon's maximum range, and then do a reverse burn immediately - by doing so, when the shots reach you, they'll be spread out enough that only one or two will hit, and you might avoid them entirely. Also keep in mind that the detonations can also set off mines that are nearby in a cascade of shots, so make sure to steer clear until the detonations are complete. If you do set them off, though, occasionally they seem to spawn some modules after exploding.



Nebulae - these are shown as dark clouds on your minimap, and come in two types - one that saps your movement speed, and another that drains your energy while you are inside. Both of these put you in danger if you have to fight in them, and can make it harder to avoid floating hazards like asteroids, so it is best to avoid them entirely unless you are trying to draw an enemy into them to help you escape.

Solar Winds - these will be shown as white arrows pointing in various directions on your minimap. They are essentially wind currents that will push your ship in the direction that the arrows are pointing. If you use them to your advantage you can get a quick boost of speed in a certain direction, but try to fly against them and you'll find yourself going nowhere fast. Be careful when they are near a nebula, as it's even harder to fight against them with a speed drain. Also, when using them, make sure to check the minimap around them, to make sure that one isn't about to send you flying full-throttle into a minefield.


Additionally, there are a few other items that are points of interest. There are some companion-cube-looking boxes that can be shot for ore and salvaged equipment, and certain glimmering asteroids can be destroyed for ore as well (and as of recent updates, harvested with an ore extractor, which yields more ore that destruction).

There are also three stations you can land on (hover nearby until the green triangles finish lighting up on top of them) where you can do certain things: the module trader, where you can trade for different types, the upgrade station where you can change modules to a higher tier, and a casino station, where you can gamble three ore on a random module. There is also the sector exit, which you'll need to "land" on in the same way as the stations in order to exit the current sector and go back to the galaxy map.



Occasionally, you'll also find an anomaly (marked with a purple ? on the minimap), which can be hovered over in the same fashion - once loaded, it will spit out ore and occasionally some modules, but also fling you away from it across the map, and potentially into mines/asteroids, so make sure the area nearby is clear before trying to activate them.

Also keep in mind that the map edges apparently signify a sort of "gravity barrier," and if you attempt to fly outside of the sector grid, this force will fling you back in, sometimes at a high rate of speed. This can lead to unintended collisions, so while it is okay to skirt around the edges of the sector, it's best to avoid trying to exit them at a high rate of speed. This field affects asteroids and enemies too, so fly near the edge with caution.

Combat makes up the meat of the game, and is something you will have to do in every sector - as the exit to each sector can only be unlocked by gaining the access codes from an enemy ship that you destroy. Right now, you only need to destroy one, but you'll need to know how to destroy it before it destroys you...

Initially, success in combat is based on three things: the construction of your ship, your ability to land hits on the enemy, and your ability to avoid enemy hits/rams while avoiding the previously mentioned navigational hazards at the same time. If you're using a ship where the engines and weapons aren't well-guarded, even if you're a fairly good pilot a couple of minor errors can still spell disaster. If you find yourself spinning in space or busted up quickly, it makes sense to revise your design or try one of the different pre-builts.

There is one more thing you can do to help out in combat - picking a sector that you have a good chance of handling. Look for sectors where most of the likely enemies are lower-level than you, sectors that don't have any certain "miniboss" enemies, or ones where there is a guaranteed ally (once you get started and have built up a heartier ship, this is less of an issue). Especially avoid factories until your ship can absorb more punishment.


On the minimap, the enemy ships will appear as red dots, with vectors coming off of them to indicate their speed and direction. The bigger the dot, the bigger the ship, so keep that in mind when deciding which ships to engage with. A very large dot with a lot of vectors coming off of it should generally be avoided when youu're starting out.

If you are taking on a reasonable starting enemy, the most important thing to keep in mind is that their capabilities are similar to yours - their flight isn't particularly swift and precise, and neither are their shots. Most of them use fireballs or guided missiles, and your best defense for those is to keep moving - if you do that, the fireballs will most likely miss, and the missiles may time out before hitting you. (if you come across a ship that is shooting far more terrifying things at you, it's probably a miniboss-type ship, and your best defense against that is to be on the other side of the map from it if possible - you can still complete the sector by defeating a lower-level enemy and escaping through the gate without getting close enough for it to engage you). The best bet is usually to move around the ship that you are fighting, firing your main weapons as soon as you're about to swing on target, then continue to move around before it can train its weapons on you, turning to target it again from your new position. This helps to avoid being hit, and because both engines and weapons use up energy, alternating makes sure you have enough energy to fire a good salvo when you're back on target. If you are using the Beta ship or other similar designs, you can also focus mainly on avoidance and just let the enemy ship chase you, firing your rear-facing weapons and slowly whittling down its capabilities before turning to confront it.

Another, riskier tactic that other players have pointed out is to use the navigational hazards against the enemy - flying around to the other side of an asteroid can lead to the enemy colliding with it in an attempt to reach you. However, the asteroid can also collide with you if you misjudge your approach, and the danger increases substantially if you try to kite an enemy through a densely-packed field. It can be an effective strategy, although you need to be sure of your piloting skills if attempting it. You can also draw enemies towards a minefield, but the potential collateral damage usually isn't worth it.

Be aware that some weapons have different ranges and capabilities. Some ships, especially minibosses, have lasers and powerful weapons attached to auto-aim arms that will zero in on you when you approach, which means your ship could be decimated if you try to close and engage within fireball range. Unless you have an equally-ranged weapon equipped (the resonance cannon might work) you should probably avoid taking on such a ship, or if you want to try to, close in just enough to target one of the weapons, fire a few shots to try and pick it off, and retreat immediately before you take too much damage. If you have auto-repair bots you can pull away, wait for repairs, and then make another strafing run, but keep in mind that some enemies can have repair bots too.

There are also some enemies that are purposely designed to ram into you directly, using their armored parts to knock your ship apart. These can be hard to deal with early apart from just trying to evade them, although if you dodge their initial charge, you may be able to turn and target the back of them before they can also turn around, and hit them where they're less protected - if you can get a salvo off quick enough, you can potentially wreck enough of their engines to leave them spinning mostly harmlessly for you to pick off the rest of the way. Keep in mind, though, that there are some factories that spew out several ramming ships at once, and one can sneak up and try to bash you while you're occupied with one of the others (which is why it's best to take on those factories once you have a powerful weapons array to deal with such swarms).

No matter what you choose, beginning combat can be a little tough, but if you use a weapon that you can target well and get used to how your ship tracks and fires on enemies, you should be able to reasonably take on enough low-level enemies to get through the earlier sectors and prepare for tougher ones.

As you move though the galaxy map, one of the most important things to do is to keep an eye on the modules you've collected, edit your ship between sectors to attach what you've captured, and make use of module traders whenever you encounter one, or if you have liberated some, as needed when on the galaxy map.

A lot of the modules you will find will have modifications like weak, inefficient, bulky, etc. They will do in a pinch, and are often better than not adding anything at all, but will make your ship harder to use. So, unless you really need them, they're usually best traded in at a module trader for something better (or credits, to trade for other gear and unclutter your inventory). However, you should also note that even inferior modules can be transformed, via ore, to common or better at an upgrade station, so you may want to hang onto certain desirable parts even if they're inferior. If you pick up a firework gun, for instance, you probably want to hang on and upgrade it, but things like spotlights or other low-level stuff are better to just trade unless you really want them for decoration.

Normal modules or better should go on your ship if at all possible, especially early on - weapons, engines, energy modules and armor all make your ship do better against progressively tougher enemies. Even cosmetic bits like lights can be placed on the outside of your ship to provide expendable shielding for more important components. Just make sure to keep an eye on the energy and speed status - having them go into yellow is usually okay, but if they're both yellow or either one goes into the red, you should probably hold onto the part that pushes it over until you can provide more energy or thrust.

Within those limits, though, the more stuff, the better, although you'll need someone more expert than I to delve into the intricacies of building your own boss-level ship. One thing I will mention, though, is that some parts are more crucial than others. While some upgrades can mitigate this, especially early on, there are certain pieces of equipment that can be catastrophic to lose: thrusters work in pairs, so losing too many on one side can make your ship spin out of control, and if you lose your main weapon bank, it can be impossible to win skirmishes with other ships, whereas losing a couple of solar panels or salvage containers can be inconvenient but usually not critical. So, your engines and weapons should, as much as possible, have other modules or armor enclosing them so that the first hits you take end up on less critical components. As you lose entirely if your command center is taken out, at least one should be in the center and protected as much as possible, although additional command centers can be placed on the exterior and used as armor in a pinch if you don't have more reliable pieces.

(One additional note about command centers: there are now some command centers available that are known as AI command centers. Be very careful about adding them to your ship, as they will take over control and run various types of combat AI scrips, taking away manual control of your ship!)

I would also recommend, as soon as you get them (and as long as they don't slow you down too much), to equip ore/cargo containers, salvage enhancers, armor, and repair bots, as they will help you survive and get better equipment faster.

Also, remember as your ship builds up and you start to take on more enemies at once, that weapons can be added to all sides of your ship, and fired as directional broadsides with the WASD keys. You probably want the most weapons pointed towards the front, but having some on the other sides can keep multiple enemies at bay. If you have access to missile arrays, these tend to work the best, as you can concentrate on aiming your main weapons at one enemy while using the arrays to do decent damage to other enemies around. Even a couple of scatter guns can help to bust up enemies that are trying to flank you, and they don't take up too much bulk or energy.

Continue working your way through the galaxy, choosing sectors that look manageable, and that have stations you can use. (Once a sector with a station has been cleared, you can return to it to trade later on). Be wary of harder missions, enemy ship factories, and Von Neumann missions until your ship has a decent slate of powerful weapons and defenses, as these missions often require taking on multipple enemies coming at you from all angles.

Explore every sector thoroughly (unless a powerful ship or factory requires a quicker escape), and grab all the parts and ore you can find. Eventually, you'll end up with a solid ship and an array of powerful weapons, and you can then take on factories and other heavily-armed ships with confidence...




These are a few of the ships I've been able to build up so far in Exploration mode, and even those are examples of what's possible a fraction of the way through a decent-sized galaxy map. That's as far as I've made it at this point, so I don't yet know what other challenges await you deeper into the galaxy map. However, these strategies have helped me to go from getting blasted within the first couple of sectors to making it a decent way through the map, and I hope that they will help you do the same.