While I intend to expand on this guide, the lack of combat guides as of the moment have led me to create this short but hopefully helpful guide for both defending yourself and attacking the enemy.

So you've started a game, maybe you just forgot to turn off the AI enemies or maybe you wanted a whole bunch of them just to see if you could survive. Either way, you now have the need to know if they are nearby and a way to fight back should they come within firing distance of you.

Now, assuming you can not see any enemies right at the start, you will need to construct a way (or rather THEE way) to find them at longer ranges. With the starting materials, you can easily afford a radar, the placement of which is up to you though I would strongly recommend trying to keep the side you will have pointed at the enemy as narrow as possible since it limits the number of places you can be hit. You may even wish to have the radar be placed as "secondary armor" meaning that they will likely have to shoot through that if they meanage to get through any primary armor pieces you have. It's far better to lose your radar than it is to lose your cockpit or engineering bay.

Now that you have a radar (and have connected it to a power supply), you should be able to pick out a few red diamond shaped icons. These are your enemies. The radar will also help you spot salvage pieces that are often floating around them indicated by the grey diamonds. Don't go running after them yet! They are usually armed with a cannon or other weapon of that nature.

For now, adjust your course so that you stay out of their way for the moment.

Now we're going to work on arming your ship. If you want to place any pieces to act as armor (taking the damage from the incoming fire rather than your more important bits) then put it on now but keep enough resources for a turret. The weapon can't shoot through your own ship and can damage any pieces put in front of it. Once you build the turret, you'll notice that the gun itself hasn't been mounted. As of 0.72, the weapons themselves don't seem to require construction materials though some require power to fire.

Once you place it on there, you may think you're ready but YOU MUST SET UP THE TURRET ITSELF FIRST. To do this click on the turret UNDERNEATH the weapon and turn on automatic fire. Now the turret will engage enemies within it's range and firing arc. Turning on the "view range" function will help you better determine when it will start doing this. There is also a manual fire option though this causes your weapon to aim and fire at your mouse (to the best of it's ability) meaning that even if you are just selecting some part of your ship and your mouse is out of it's firing arc, it will shoot whatever happens to be in front of where it's aiming at the time.

You may also want to add a grabber somewhere so you can salvage the wreckage afterwards.

(To be add later!)

Now that you are equiped to handle a fight, adjust your course so that you come close to an enemy, pay attention to the direction they are moving as well as where you are moving because even if you are going slow enough to win a brief battle, you may find the fuel needed to turn around and gather their materials is more costly than you thought. Other things like astroids or planets may also cause you trouble later as the battle moves along it's orbit. Purposely seeking out a target often requires just as much (if not more) forethought as preparing your ship for battle in the first place.

Once you have your course plotted and are coming close to being in range, you will need to position your ship so that your turrets will engage them constantly and whatever armor you have stays pointed at the enemy. Here, manual targeting can really help you as it will allow you to snipe certian parts off the enemy whether it be the enemy turret or some manuvering thrusters so they can't turn to face you as you move around them. Just remember that they will fire with every click, including the one you use to turn manual control off in the menu which might cause unwanted damage depending on where it is pointing.

Now that you've won the fight or at least sent the enemy bouncing around in an astroid belt, it's time to use your grabber and engineering bay to gather up stray pieces and recycle them. just select your engineering bay. Turn your ship and move your grabber to a piece to grab it and then use your engineering bay's Shift+Click function to deconstruct the piece. Make sure not to deconstruct the grabber by accident and keep in mind that any piece that gets seperated from the grabbed piece will float away. You may find that this is a rather lucrative source of common materials so constructing a second ship using your second person might be a good idea later on.

I've even literally carried a station around with this idea though it's been a while since then and I'm not sure how the AI will react to that now. There are reports of when you grab an AI ship using the connector ports using "v", it will now take over your whole ship! I've never had it happen before but then again, I haven't tried it in a while as well!

You can use the grabber to repair damaged ships that don't have an engineering bay as well.

Please let me know of any advice or experiences you've had and understand that this really only covers the basic ideas. There are many ways to fight in this game and some can be more effective than others. My hope is that you at least managed to learn one or two things and can now use that to learn on your own.

Fly safe, build smart and carry a big stick!