How to Conquer the Universe in Space Impossible [new A14 content but still mostly out of date]

All right cadet, here's what you need to know to get your ships and stations up to an advanced level and be able to tackle any foe or colonize any region of space at your whim.

Basic Training

Create a Universe, give it a name, and take note of the seed word combination if you would want to share it or restart it.






Flying
Use WSAD. Q and E give you lateral thrust. Little blue arrows around you indicate objects just outside your visible range. Aim in between the arrows if you are trying to go fast through an asteroid field. Try not to crash into stuff. {as of alpha 5.1 crash damage is off so feel free to bounce off of everything.} Engines in reverse provide %5O of their maximum thrust




Repairing
{this section is moot until repair mechanics is brought back into the game. instead, see the Building Section}

You crashed into stuff, didn't you? Move some repair kits to the action bar at the bottom of the screen, (it will stick to your cursor afterwards so put it back in your inventory), close inventory, equip the repair kits, right click to enter repair mode, left click in the desired area when the repair blob is green. Right-click again to exit repair mode


Mining
Head over to an asteroid or planetoid, equip your laser, and right click on or past the target. Tiles will start to look shattered and eventually break, releasing their ore.





Collecting
Fly over the objects in space to collect them. You need to have open slots in your inventory, of course!






Transferring Cargo
Pull up another craft's inventory by left-clicking it. Then hit I to bring up your ship's inventory alongside the craft you just selected. Left click grabs the whole stack of an item, left clicking again drops the whole stack. Right clicking allows you to grab half of a stack. Shift-left clicking on a stack when two vessel inventories are open transfers the whole stack between vessels. You can drop items into emtpy space, or click and hold on the trash if you want to get rid of them.



Crafting
Pull up the crafting menu by hitting C or one of the buttons with the hammer that comes up beside the inventory in vessels with at least one lab installed. Crafting recipes and times are shown by hovering over items and the ones you cannot craft due to insufficient materials will have a little red exclamation point on them. Click an item to add it to a lab's queue or shift-click to add a stack of ten to the queue, and it will begin manufacturing. You can click or shift-click on items in the queue to remove one or all of a stack.



If you have more labs available, you can put them to work as well and produce more goods in a given time. When an item in the queue cannot be manufactured due to insufficient materials, it will show a triangle caution emblem and stop production until you either remove it from the queue or put or make the proper materials in the lab vessel's cargo hold.



Towing
{This section is moot until tractor beams are reintroduced. You will have to push or ram into any object you want to move for the time being.}







Put a tractor beam into one of your weapon slots and it will automatically equip and be ready to go when you hit T. Train the beam on an object with your mouse and once you have captured it you can tow it to a new location within the region and hit T again to release it. You can beam any object, but don't expect to be able to tow a large planetoid or vessel anywhere with a tiny 2-engine ship.



Exploring
Enter the greater star system beyond your humble station region by pressing the WARP button at the bottom of the screen. You will then find yourself in a black expanse with concentric circles containing asteroids and planets, most of which have either a moon or a station or asteroid region in their orbit. Circles will be brighter near the planets whose orbits they indicate to help you find planets nearby. All the regions that you can visit will show some info when hovered over. Flying into a region will pull you out of warp and drop you in the region. At the center you will find a star region that can be visited also but the blinding light will make even a simple operation quite difficult.

The angle at which you enter a region determines which side of the region you warp into, and you will be facing the center of the region when you leave warp. Likewise, your position relative to the center of the region determines which side of the region you will appear on in the star system when warping out. {Alpha 5.1 has some issues with leaving tightly clustered regions causing you to drop back out of warp into the same or adjacent region repeatedly. If this happens, fly to another corner of the region and try warping again.}

You will also see some other objects in space, which are opportunities for so-called dynamic encounters. These include other ships that fly about on preset paths and distress beacons, indicated by the circle/exclamation point icons. To encounter a ship, fly near it and click to target the ship, which will give it a blue circle. You may then need to fly even closer until the ENGAGE button comes up, at which point you can click it or hit the spacebar. Once out of warp, go forward at the same heading until you see the navarrow. Distress beacons you can fly into and find a disabled ship at the center, yours for the taking.


All the way out at the edge of your star system is a dotted line, which if crossed, takes you to the adjacent star system. You start out in system 10,10 and can access adjacent systems in eight directions.

Northwest/315 degrees/system 9,11	North/0 degrees/system 10,11	Northeast/45 degrees/system 11,11
West/270 degrees/system 9,10	ORIGIN/system 10,10	East/90 degrees/system 11,10
Southwest/225 degrees/system 9,9	South/180 degrees/system 10,9	Southeast/135 degrees/system 11,9

As you head out into the universe, you will notice several types of stars of different sizes. Commonly seen stars are the M, G, and K types, but you may also find A,B, and O type stars. The size of the star determines the expanse of the star region, and there are dwarf, regular, giant, and super-giant varieties of every type of star.

{as of 5.1 there is no level progression implemented so no matter how far you travel from your origin you will still see mostly the same types of asteroid metals, but each star system will have a dominant faction throughout most regions and all ship encounters, with the remaining regions being either pirates, lawless space, or uninhabited.}

Objectives

OK, so you completed basic and got the jist of the game mechanics down. What comes next is totally up to you, but here are some things that will probably make it onto your list of objectives that you set for yourself:

• More Firepower
  
• More Energy
  
• More Shielding
  
• More Engine Power
  
• More Cargo Space
  
• More Labs
  
• More Ships
  
• More Stations
  
• More Looting
  
• More Swashbuckling
  
• More Enemies Crushed At Your Hands

(I plan to add more detail to each of these topics below)

Building

To get started with all of the objectives above, you're going to have to learn ship building. This requires a vessel other than your own that has an assembler installed, usually a station, that also needs to have an energy source, such as a matter reactor. Cargo space to hold things to put on your ship is not a complete necessity for going into build mode but obviously important unless you are just recoloring your paint job. Assemblers have a radius of operation that you have to enter before given the option to enter build mode, both as an onscreen button at the bottom center and on the side of the inventory bar if you have it open, marked by a yellow square with a crane claw.

Fortunateley for you, each fresh spawn includes a Homestead Station with some parts and materials to modify your Venture with before heading out into the vastness of the universe. Not enough to make a proper A-class frigate, of course, but enough to enhance and stylize your vessel in some useful or creative ways.



Build mode is broken into two main parts, and each of those another two. You have EDIT TILES which includes PLACE for adding/removing tiles, and PAINT for re-coloring hull plating. Then There is EDIT COMPONENTS which includes MOUNT for adding/removing the things that hold components and COMP. for adding/removing the desired components. You can also LOAD TEMPLATE or SAVE TEMPLATE to save and restore any type of vessel or object. At the top left you can name the vessel, which this will be used to auto-fill as the template name should you click save. Below the name you see some vital stats on the vessel updated in real time as you make changes, such as mass, storage, and the number of various types of mounts. Then there is a dropdown menu under "Change Size" that allows you to create larger ships, provided you install the requisite bridge mounts. The first of the small buttons above EDIT TILES is the symmetry button. use it to place anything on two sides of your ship opposite from each other with one click. The next button turns on and off the center of mass indicator, which can be very useful for building asymmetrical ships like the Sixiser's, or for just making sure your side-thrusters are going to work at their best efficiency by being equally spaced apart fore and aft of the CM. The following button turns on and off the grid overlay, not too complicated, and the final button turns on and off the colorations of the hull plating. It does not erase the paint, even if you exit building. Your custom paint job will be saved until you turn it back on and modify it some more.

PLACE
Select a tile type on the right side inventory bar to begin placing tiles with left click, or click-hold. Tiles can be removed with right click, regardless of whether a tile type is stuck to your cursor.

PAINT
You can only paint on the various types of hull platings, not raw materials like rock or plagistine. Select a color from the menu and left-click or click-hold to apply the color. Right-clicking will strip the paint and leave you with the unfinished hull color. What you paint on your ships is entirely up to you, will it be the mask of war or a rainbow of splendor?

MOUNTS
Every component needs something to hold it, and the size of the mount is usually important to be able to fit the desired tool or utility. The size categories range from micro to small, medium, large, and finally gigantic. Hover over items in inventory to see what mounts you need. With the appropriate mount selected, place with left click or click-hold. Remove with right-click.

Weapon and Engine mounts are directional, and by default weapons face forward and engines backward. You can change the direction by hovering over a mount and pressing an arrow key, or by hovering and pressing R or SHIFT+R to rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise in 15 degree increments.

Mount Types include:

REACTOR

SHIELD

WEAPON

BRIDGE

CARGO BAY

ENGINE

LAB

ASSEMBLER

COMPONENTS
Components are what makes your ships function, like with whooshing sounds and pew-pew laser bolts and stuff. The quality of those components is going to affect its function as much, if not more than their quantity. You'll notice that some components have a "Mk." system of grading where higher marks are better quality, while other types of component's quality is related to its size or mass, such as the "Compact Large Cargo Bay", which is a relatively spacious cargo hold that is very lightweight.

Add and remove components in build mode the same way you would do mounts, with the exception that click-holding does not work. You will get a buzzer sound if trying to place a component in the wrong type or size of mount. Hover over your components to make sure of what type of accommodations they require.

TEMPLATES
Templates are plans for vessels or objects that can be constructed with the assembler in build mode. When you hit save, it will autofill the template name with the vessel name as it appears in the main build screen on the top left. When loading, you will see a preview of the vessel or object on the right, with a small button in the corner to toggle component view on/off. When selecting a template the game will remind you that it must clear the grid before assembling if there are any tiles already present. Everything being cleared goes into the assembler vessel's cargo holds and if there is'nt enough space the items will be dropped into space around the building area, so watch out! If you try to load a template that the assembler vessel does not have the parts for, the game will tell you which tiles, mounts or components are missing.


Save your ship template often and save newer versions of it whenever you make some upgrades. This can be helpful if you have to start over for some reason, because of a destroyed vessel or just starting a new Universe. You also might want to make a clearing template for collecting all the useful bits of a ship you just incapacitated and leaving behind a little calling card which can also tell you for sure you visited that region already if you happen to wander back again. You could also have a template for shunting off a bunch of tritanium hull and then shooting it to bits if you need tritanium sheets instead of hull tiles. You'll probably have a template for a repair station in there too, one which has enough cargo room to hold everything on your ship as well as in it if you want hassle-free repair jobs, which I will explain both ways to do it below:

REPAIRING

Repairing Manually
Take your assembler vessel and make sure it has at least some hull tiles and whichever components and mounts you might need to replace. Go into build mode and remove any tiles that are partly broken and then replace all the tiles you need and add the mounts/components as necessary. New tiles will have to be repainted.

Repairing by template
Start with an assembler vessel that has ample storage and go into build mode. First remove your cargo bays so that now all your inventory is in the assembler vessel. Next load a clearing template so that all of your ship, or what was left of it anyway, is now also in the assembler vessel. Finally, reload the latest version of your ship template.

Alternate method: Start by putting the material for your clearing template into the assembler vessel. Go into build, load the clearing template, then the new ship.

Super Quick Repair Method
You can eliminate the clearing template step by simply having enough materials to build a second copy of your ship. Just remove bays and load.

Weapons

As of Alpha 6, weapons are pretty limited. There are basic lasers up to Mk.3, Mining Lasers, and defense turret lasers. There are some other types that are only available by taking them from alien factions like the Kalgiri and Druminence. Early Alphas also had torpedoes, which will probably be reintroduced soon as well as some other types of lasers such as the salvageborer. There are also plans for shield-specific weapons and possibly physics-based weapons like repulsor beams.

LASERS

Lasers have to be supplied with energy (usually a matter reactor) in order to work. If you have a lot of lasers and not much energy, you will see the bar over the weapon slots depleting as you fire and if the energy is depleted your lasers will shut down. Even when you have lots of energy, however, most lasers will have to cool down intermittently and cannot be fired continuously. A little icon to the left of the energy bar indicates this, with a second hand sweeping motion being completed before the laser is no longer disabled. Keep in mind that every time a laser stops firing it will have to go through the cooldown cycle, whether it is from overheating, lack of energy, being aimed outside of the firing arc, or whenever you stop firing. So keep your hand on the trigger when you are facing a threat and don't turn away or let go until it's neutralized. If you keep holding fire while lasers are in cooldown they will begin firing again as soon as they have finished.

Here is a table of some lasers and stats:

	Basic Laser Mk.1	Basic Laser Mk.2	Basic Laser Mk.3
Mounts	small	small	small
Range	32	32	32
Arc	27O	225	18O
Rate of Fire	1	1	1
Cooldown	long	medium	short

What remains of this section is dated, but some features from the early alpha may return.

The weapons will soon be divided into mining and combat specific varieties, but for now mining lasers, station defense lasers, and torpedoes are the basic tools for ripping apart spaceships and asteroids. We'll focus on the mining laser first. You'll want to upgrade to level 2 as soon as you can to make harvesting resources or engaging in combat that much less frustrating, but beware that higher level lasers require more energy, so your Mk 1 Matter Reactor won't power it as long.

You will need to be near a station that has an Isometric Framer Mk 1 or greater to be able to upgrade past a Mk 1 laser. Select the lab at the top of the craft menu and scroll down or search to find them.

Mining Laser Mk 2	Mining Laser Mk 3	Mining Laser Mk 4	Mining Laser Mk 5
2 Tritanium Roll	4 Tritanium Roll	1 Magnesite Roll	2 Magnesite Roll
1 Cut Keloirit	1 Cut Keloirit	1 Cut Plagistine	1 Cut Plagistine
1 Basic CPU Mk2	2 Basic CPU Mk3	8 Basic CPU Mk4	16 Basic CPU Mk5
1 Mining Laser Mk1	1 Mining Laser Mk2	1 Mining Laser Mk3	1 Mining Laser Mk4

Now to upgrade these lasers even further and also be able to craft other weapons you need an Inert Photon Quantifier installed in a station's lab slot. Mk 1 IPQ will allow you to reach Mk 6 and 7, and Mk 2 will allow for Lasers 8 and 9.

Mining Laser Mk 6	Mining Laser Mk 7	Mining Laser Mk 8	Mining Laser Mk 9
4 Magnesite Roll	1 Bonivium Roll	2 Bonivium Roll	1 Kelbium Roll
1 Cut Plagistine	1 Cut Diomodie	1 Cut Diomodie	1 Cut Heffenstone
8 Basic CPU Mk6	14 Capable CPU Mk1	22 Capable CPU Mk2	38 Capable CPU Mk4
1 Mining Laser Mk5	1 Mining Laser Mk6	1 Mining Laser Mk7	1 Mining Laser Mk8

Reactors

Reactors give your ship the power it needs to function. Most reactor components in early game are matter reactors, but there are a few other types. Ships themselves function with pretty minimal power requirements, but it's the lasers and shields that are going to require lots of juice and force you to upgrade your reactors from time to time. Reactor mounts also play an important role in the game currently, as having lots of empty mounts on your ship will increase its turning rate without adding mass. The mount size does not influence the turning rate, but rather the number of mounts vs. the total mass and number of engine mounts. The mount size will, however, affect which reactors you can put in it if you plan on doing that. Matter Reactors Mk1-12 all fit in 3 sizes of mounts, so in most cases small mounts do the job.

Notice my ship here is almost 2/3rds empty reactor slots, with only a single reactor actually installed. It weighs 332 tons and can complete a 360 in just over 3 seconds.

Shields

Shields form an energy barrier when activated by the G key and use power from the reactors available. Each takes a certain amount of time to power up and you will soon see them flicker to life. While active your engine thrust is reduced to half, but you can charge your shield and deactivate it for maneuvers and it will maintain the charge until you exit the region, so you can bring the shields back online at a moment's notice when you need them. They will block enemy laser attacks from the outside until sufficiently weakened enough to cause the perimeter to collapse and have to recharge, indicated by a small icon with the sweep motion. In order to keep your shields up as much as possible, you can try to rotate different sides of the shield towards your attacker to sustain attacks longer, and/or disengage when part of your shield is looking weak to wait for it to regain full charge. You can also add backup shields that cover the same or roughly the same area, and of course there are many upgraded versions of the basic shield with a variety of stats on coverage, charge time, total charge, and mass.

	Energy Shield Mk.1	Energy Shield Mk.2	Energy Shield Mk.3	Energy Shield Mk.4	Energy Shield Mk.5	Energy Shield Mk.6	Energy Shield Mk.7	Energy Shield Mk.8
Mount	micro	micro	micro/small	micro/small	small	small	small/medium	small/medium
Mass	.1	.2	.3	.4	.5	.6	.7	.8
Radius	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	1O
Energy	15O	2OO	25O	3OO	35O	4OO	45O	5OO
Charge Rate	2O	21	22	23	24	25	26	27

	Robust Shield Mk.1	Robust Shield Mk.2	Robust Shield Mk.3	Robust Shield Mk.4	Robust Shield Mk.5	Robust Shield Mk.6	Robust Shield Mk.7	Robust Shield Mk.8
Mount	small	small	small	small	?	?	?	?
Mass	.2	.4	.6	.8	1	1.2	1.4	1.6
Radius	5	5	6	7	?	?	?	?
Energy	3OO	4OO	5OO	6OO	7OO	8OO	9OO	1OOO
Charge Rate	25	3O	35	4O	45	5O	55	6O

	Amped Shield Mk.1	Amped Shield Mk.2	Amped Shield Mk.3	Amped Shield Mk.4	Amped Shield Mk.5	Amped Shield Mk.6	Amped Shield Mk.7	Amped Shield Mk.8
Mount	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mass	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Radius	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Energy	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Charge Rate	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

	Languid Shield Mk.1	Languid Shield Mk.2	Languid Shield Mk.3	Languid Shield Mk.4	Languid Shield Mk.5	Languid Shield Mk.6	Languid Shield Mk.7	Languid Shield Mk.8
Mount	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mass	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Radius	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Energy	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Charge Rate	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

	Reinforced Shield Mk.1	Reinforced Shield Mk.2	Reinforced Shield Mk.3	Reinforced Shield Mk.4	Reinforced Shield Mk.5	Reinforced Shield Mk.6	Reinforced Shield Mk.7	Reinforced Shield Mk.8
Mount	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mass	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Radius	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Energy	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Charge Rate	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

	Massive Shield Mk.1	Massive Shield Mk.2	Massive Shield Mk.3	Massive Shield Mk.4	Massive Shield Mk.5	Massive Shield Mk.6	Massive Shield Mk.7	Massive Shield Mk.8
Mount	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mass	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Radius	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Energy	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Charge Rate	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Remember shields only protect from attacks that come from outside their radius, so if you have a shield covering a much larger area than your ship itself there is a greater likelihood of enemies shooting you from inside your shield bubble.

Engines

Engines are great. They're the one thing that separates the vessels from the stations in Space Impossible. They typically propel a vessel forward by pointing to the rear, but can also be pointed forward, port, or starbord. Ion Engines are the most common, but you will also see Plasma Drives and a few others in alien ships and cargo holds. Besides the mount size, every engine has only two stats to concern yourself with, (thrust and mass) which can be distilled into one useful variable called thrust-to-weight-ratio or TWR. Basically it is how much thrust is generated per ton by the engine, and it makes for much easier comparison of engines with differing mass.

Remember to make sure your engines are all acting symmetrically on the center of mass of your vessel, or else you'll have a ship that lists to one side and probably make your crew seasick trying to follow a straight line.

Currently you can only build Mk.1 and Mk.2 Ion Engines, all the others must be wrested from the...well I would say hands but whatever grasper-like things those aliens have...you gotta steal it from 'em.

	Ion Mk.1	Ion Mk.2	Ion Mk.3	Ion Mk.4	Ion Mk.5	Ion Mk.6	Ion Mk.7	Ion Mk.8	Ion Mk.9
Mount	small	small	small	small	medium	medium	medium	medium	medium
Mass	1	1	1.1	1.1	1.2	1.2	1.3	1.3	1.4
Thrust	5O	8O	1OO	12O	15O	18O	?7?	?8?	25O
TWR	5O	8O	9O.9	1O9.1	125	15O	?7?	?8?	178.6

It is interesting to note that the Ion Engine Mk.9 is on par with our current rocket technology in terms of thrust-to-weight ratio. The Merlin 1D developed by SpaceX in 2O12 has a TWR of 18O.1

	Micro Thruster	Small Thruster	Plasma Drive	Spatial Slip	Magnatronic Drive	Quantum Manifold
Mount	micro	small	med/large	gigantic	gigantic	gigantic

Cargo Bays

Cargo bays are pretty much essential if you want to acquire the means to conquer the universe, but how many and what type is the question you need to be asking yourself. You may want to keep a small number of cargo bays and shuttle inventory in to wherever your home base is, or maybe you want to be a nomad that carries everything with you and have copious amounts of cargo space. That's all up to however you want to do it.

There are three main types of cargo bays (normal, bulky, and compact) that each come in the five different sizes, from micro to gigantic. Bulky versions hold more but weigh several times as much, Compact versions hold less and weigh very little.

Labs

Adding more labs to stations and upgrading them will shorten the amount of time you spend manufacturing.
Labs currently do not dictate what level of components you can build. All labs have the same number of recipes.
The only labs currently available are Isometric Framer Mk.1, 2, and 3. They have 4,5, and 6 slots in their manufacturing queue, respectively, and each weighs 1 ton more than the last.


An older screenshot of the different types of labs

Ships

How many ships does a captain need? One is fine, but if you want extra ships there is nothing to stop you from making as many as you want. You will only be able to pilot one at a time, unfortunately, but building a big space fleet can still be useful by giving you vessels with specialized capabilities to choose from and also provide you with a backup ship should you lose your main one.


Building New Ships
There isn't a really straightforward way to create new ships from scratch right now, so you have a couple of different options:

• Start with an asteroid, ship, or anything not owned by another faction. If it is, you must destroy all of the bridges until you have the ability to take control of it. Push it near your station with an assembler, or if you have one on your ship just fly close enough to build on it. Click the object, and find the yellow build button beside the object's inventory window. (If for some reason the build button doesn't come up, take the object out of the assembler's range and back again. Should fix this problem.)
  
• If for whatever reason there are no objects that you can or want to dismantle and build into a ship, you can create a new object by cutting something into two pieces. If you want to keep the object whole, start by building a protrusion off of it and use a different vessel to surgically cut off the part sticking out that you added. Then follow the steps above.
  
• The final method is to activate cheats and spawn something in that you can then build on. The simplest one to go with is the default Venture ship. Hit Enter, type "/sv_cheats 1", Enter. If done correctly the chat comm will notify you that the server variable of cheats is set to true. Hit Enter, type "/spawn venture1", Enter. If all goes well a new Venture will pop into existence just above you. From there follow the steps above.

As long as you remember to build at least one bridge on your new creation, you should be able to take control of it after launching out of build mode and take it for a test run.

Changing a Ship's Size

In order to get the larger grid to build on, you must first build the right size bridge mount somewhere, then select a grid size from the dropdown menu. If you have a medium bridge you can make the grid micro, small, or medium, and if you want a gigantic grid you have to put a gigantic bridge mount somewhere first. You can however, change the bridge sizes later or remove them completely and your grid will still stay the same. If you use the dropdown menu to decrease the grid size and it would force the assembler to reduce the size of your ship, you will get a warning window with the option to cancel.

Naming Your Ships
Here are some different types of ships for various purposes, to give you some ideas for what to build and how to name it:

• Shuttle - a basic craft for traversing short distances within a region
  
• Patrol Ship/Scout - a small ship with a few weapons that is fast and maneuverable
  
• Cutter/Corvette/Escort - a basic fighter with a priority on weapons and maneuverability
  
• Fast Attack Craft - a more heavy-hitting fighter that is both fast and maneuverable
  
• Frigate/Destroyer - a long-range gunship with heavier defenses and more cargo holds
  
• Cruiser - a very well rounded warship
  
• Carrier - a ship that carries other ships, though not exactly possible in game as yet
  
• Wrecker - a combat ship that also has an assembler for disassembling enemy ships
  
• Cargo Ship/Freighter/Merchant Ship - a cargo vessel which is lightly armed, if at all
  
• Repurposed Freighter - a cargo ship, only meaner
  
• Blockade Runner - a highly improved cargo ship that is fast, maneuverable, and fight-ready
  
• Colony Ship - a non-hostile ship for settling new regions
  
• Research Vessel - a non-hostile ship for exploration
  
• Repair Ship/Mobile Shipyard - a basic ship with an assembler for building and repairs
  
• Tug/Scooper/Pushcraft - an unarmed ship with the engine power to push or pull objects
  
• Asteroid Miner - a ship with mining lasers

I also use a naming system that separates ships into classes represented by a letter that indicates the size and quality of a vessel, and a number that represents the mass.


Basic Components
A Class - Gigantic
B Class - Large
C Class - Medium
D Class - Small
E Class - Micro

Specialty Components
X Class - Gigantic
F Class - Large
M Class - Medium
S Class - Small
P Class - Micro


Hull Types
This seems a fine place to put a table of hull types that your ships may use:

	Tritanium	Light Tritanium	Reinforced Tritanium	Dense Tritanium	Magnesite	Light Magnesite	Reinforced Magnesite
Mass	.25	.1	.35	.5	.45	.4	.5
Health	5OO	45O	55O	45O	6OO	55O	65O

These are all the Explorer Union ships that you could previously craft in your stations.

Stations

Stations are vessels without engines whose main purposes are things like storing inventory, manufacturing materials and components, or assembling and repairing other ships. They can also be fitted with shields and weapons for defense.

Build your own stations to suit your needs. I highly recommend that you upgrade your station as necessary to always have enough cargo room to hold your entire inventory in addittion to all the tiles and components on your ship, to avoid building mishaps where objects are forced to be released into space.

You might choose to build just one station, in either your spawn region or the home region of your choosing and revisit that station as necessary to unload and sort cargo, manufacture, and upgrade. You might colonize several regions in a star system or throughout the universe if you want to have several bases of operation. You can also fly a ship with its own assembler and the means to build repair or lab outposts as necessary. Or you could be a total maverick and just hijack whatever stations you find to serve your needs.

These are some of the stations you will find out among the stars:
If you come across a station that has an assembler, you can take out the bridge components to gain control of the station and add your own inventory to the cargo holds, or just use the assembler to add to your ship whatever happens to be in the station inventory without attacking it. (You can do this even if the station is hostile)

Trading

New for Alpha 14 is the trading system. Here is a couple of quick tips

Initiate trading with hail [H]

Trader Types
found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Space Impossible\GameData\base\scripts\trades

you can use these names when assigning traders via command

• Arms [will buy crystals at inflated price]
  
• Basic [appears as "seasoned merchant", sells discounted engines]
  
• BlackMkt [buys arms at inflated price]
  
• Component [buys ore at inflated price]
  
• Construction [hull tiles, mounts, reactors]
  
• Crystal [buys luxury goods at inflated price]
  
• Gas [sells cheap gases]
  
• Iceminer [water vapor and condensed water]
  
• Luxury [buys arms and component at inflated price]
  
• Miner [buys luxury goods at inflated price]
  
• Rockminer [also buys luxury goods at inflated price]
  
• Salvage [also buys luxury goods at inflated price]
  
• Starter [A few basics]

These may not be consistent across all factions, so far I have been looking at Explorer and Ticeroy traders.

You can already see some supply chains that could be very profitable if you know where to find the specific traders you need. And If you don't know where to find them, you can use the command:

/settrader [objectUID] [istrader true/false] [refreshinv true/false] [type of trader]

for example, setting object 67 to a miner trade would be

/settrader 67 1 1 miner

The object should have AI before you do this, and needs to have a bridge. leave out the last parameter for randomized traders.

Trade Lanes

Green line thingies appear when discovered, which frequently spawns traders!

Add new ones with /spawntradelane [from region UID] [to region UID]

you can leave out one or both region UIDs to get a random destination or both to/from

Scavenging

When you come across cargo containers or ships in distress that have no bridge component, Their inventory and components are available for the taking without the need to fire your lasers. You can collect quite a lot of inventory by just looking for containers and avoiding contact with enemy vessels. If this is your main strategy, design your ship as a blockade runner, with extra engine power and maneuverability.

Pirating

The Scalliwag's approach is to plunder all ye can no matter what stands in the way. For this you will need a sufficiently armed and defensible ship, so that you can neutralize your targets quickly by taking out the bridge components. Once accomplished, loot their cargo holds and anything not nailed down before setting the hulk adrift and sailing off to plunder some more.

Battling

Maybe you think its necessary to wipe out an entire faction in regions or systems throughout the universe. In that case you will want a very deadly ship that can vaporize enemies in seconds and sustain lots of damage. You can disable ships and deconstruct them or build them into your own fleet with a wrecker, or if you don't care about saving hull tiles or component mounts you can just completely destroy things with your weapons.

Good luck and happy cleansing!


Higher Difficulty
For creating even more difficult (or even IMPOSSIBLE) odds against yourself, you can try the /addai command added with Alpha 7 to give AI to a custom ship. See Cheats section and video below.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=941544345

Levels

*note that not all levels are not implemented as of yet and are coming in later Alphas

The various levels of region determine what resources will be available. Here is a table of them:

	Ore	Gemstone
Level 1	Tritanium	Keloirit
Level 10	Magnesite	Plagistine
Level 20	Bovinium	Diomodie

The following are yet to return:

Level 30	Kelbium	Heffenstone
Level 40	Virmatite	Yoggenite
Level 50	Naronium	Tilostone	Level 60 Cirelium Cerminon	Level 70 Gavitanium Jompegon Level 80 Duralium Nocturni

Tips and Hints

• THE GAME DOES NOT PAUSE WHEN YOU HIT ESCAPE.
  
  
• When using shields in a dogfight, get familiar with how much your shields can take before they collapse, and ideally you will know when to disengage just before or as your shields are failing, preventing you from taking any damage. Always try to have a fully charged shield when entering conflict and remember you can turn off your shield once it's charged if you are out of enemy range and could use the full engine power. They will turn back on instantly when you need them.
  
  Here's a video of me putting the 2 shields I have on board to good use, as well as some defensive flying maneuvers:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRvTUlX1VPM
  
  
• You may want to re-bind your thruster keys to left shift and space so that you can turn and burn at the same time in a dogfight. However, you may opt for no side-thrusters at all because they take up valuable component space. Small and micro thrusters are pretty useless unless for some reason you want to move a vessel very slowly and precisely. You can use any size engine for side-thrust, however, so if you want to design a ship that can translate sideways as quickly as it moves forward or back, then make it so.
  
  
• I personally like having a few engines forward facing, such that you can hit reverse speeds equal to or greater than your foes. The strategy is to face the enemy while backing up to stay out of their firing range until their lasers overheat, giving you an opening to close the distance and start firing.
  
  
• It's easy to miss a pixel or two when mining or salvaging wreckage and then run into them trying to collect the items. Wave your laser beams back and forth behind the object and make sure the laser is unimpeded before going in there.
  
  
• Assemblers are super handy to have on board, but so massive! Try carrying an assembler mount on your ship somewhere, but don't install the assembler until you need it, saving 1OO tons of mass. In fact, if you install it from inventory rather than build mode, the physics engine won't update your ship's mass until you re-load a region. Use your assembler to quickly deconstruct disabled ships with a clearing template, or to build a repair station when you need one.
  
  
• When starting out in a new Universe, you can spend a lot of time preparing everything available in the spawn region to make the best possible ship just in case your first encounters turn out to be difficult. I came up with this vessel after turning most of the availalbe tritanium hull into wreckage and then sheets to craft light tritanium hull and other components.
  I even made the mistake of crafting the small shield mount when I could have just taken one from my homestead station, so if you come up with a bit more titanium than I did I would add more light tritanium with empty micro reactor mounts to increase the turn rate.
  -36 Light Tritanium Hull
  -1 Small Bridge
  -4 Small Weapon Mounts
  -4 Basic Laser Mk.3
  -12 Small Reactor Mounts
  -1 Matter Reactor Mk.1
  -1 Small Shield Mount
  -1 Robust Shield Mk.1
  -12 Small Engine Mounts
  -1O Ion Engine Mk.2
  -2 Ion Engine Mk.1
  -2 Large Cargo Mounts
  -2 Gigantic Cargo Mounts
  -2 Compact Large Cargo Bays
  -2 Compact Gigantic Cargo Bays
  -1 Small Lab Mount
  -1 Isometric Framer Mk.1
  -1 Large Assembler Mount
  -1 Large Assembler
  
  
• I was finding it pretty common to see the exact same inventory in the Lawless Space Building Yards, so I made a template of a derelict ship with as much of the inventory as possible. Push an asteroid near the assembler, and build the template with it. Then dissassemble it with your own assembler. Congratulations, you have just swindled them out of some old parts without having to attack and take control of the station.
  

Cheats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrukZw2voSQ&t=11s
Here are some of the cheats you can use to enhance your gameplay:

Press F4 to turn on Debug Tooltips and hover over items to find UID numbers.
Press Enter to bring up the terminal and type in commands

/sv_cheats 1	Turns on cheats
/sv_cheats 0	Turns off cheats
/sv_gamemode 1	Turns on creative mode
/sv_gamemode 0	Turns off creative mode
/sv_disabledamage 1	Turns on invincible mode for all tiles, not just player ship
/sv_disabledamage 0	Turns off invincible mode
/selfdestruct	Initiates self-destruct sequence
/kick <playerUID>	Attempts to kick that player
/stuck	Attempts to unstick your craft
/showbuilding	Requires creative mode, allows building anywhere
/spawn <template name>	Spawns a vessel or object.
/remove <object UID>	Removes the vessel or object with that UID
/spawnitem <template ID> <#>	Spawns item of that template and quantity
/giveitem <template ID> <#> <objectUID>	Gives the item in that quantity to the vessel
/spawnai <template name> <factionUID>	Spawns an AI vessel belonging to the desired faction.
/addai <object UID> <factionUID>	Allows you to give any ship or station AI
/clear	Clears the chat log
/playerlist	Outputs a list of logged in players
/removeallitems	Removes all free-floating items in space
/seed	Outputs the universe seed name

Template Names and Faction UIDs

Lawless Space
Faction UID: 0

• stationone
  
• buildingyard
  
• starmoor1
  
• harborpoint1
  
• reccapsule
  
• shuttle
  
• smlstorage1
  
• medstorage1
  
• lrgstorage1
  
• abuja1
  
• akita1
  
• lombardy1
  
• marquis1
  
• perminon1
  
• prowler1
  
• shogun1
  
• stiel1
  
• thimpu1
  
• woaden1

Explorer Union
Faction UID: 1

• homestation
  
• waystation
  
• patralstation
  
• outpost
  
• venture1
  
• venture2 [engine refit]
  
• venture3 [weapon refit]
  
• venture4 [hull refit]
  
• explorer1
  
• explorer2 [engine refit]
  
• explorer3 [weapon refit]
  
• explorer4 [hull refit]
  
• pioneer1
  
• pioneer2 [engine refit]
  
• pioneer3 [weapon refit]
  
• pioneer4 [hull refit]
  
• providence1
  
• providence2 [engine refit]
  
• providence3 [weapon refit]
  
• providence4 [hull refit]
  
• tradesman1
  
• tradesman2
  
• odyssey1
  
• odyssey2 [engine refit]
  
• odyssey4 [hull refit]
  
• trailblazer1

The Kal'Giri
Faction UID: 2

• mnarvolstation
  
• tarux1
  
• peku1
  
• cateran1
  
• keziru1
  
• hivan1

Ticeroy Navy
Faction UID: 3

• fuelingstation
  
• solarosprey1
  
• skyhawk1
  
• astralbesra1
  
• starfalcon1
  
• stellarraptor1
  
• galacticaquila1

The Sixiser Pirates
Faction UID: 4

• smlaststation
  
• medaststation
  
• lrgaststation
  
• scout1
  
• raider1
  
• corsair1
  
• bandit1
  
• smuggler1
  
• picaroon1
  
• plunderer1

The Druminence
Faction UID: 5

• hrumestation
  
• drumit1
  
• drumen1
  
• hivan1
  
• vamei1

Debriefing

Thanks for checking out my guide. Please note that it is a work in progress. I need to collect more helpful screenshots and add more content to it, but it should be helpful as-is. Let me know if it was!

[Cuervo]

Awesome guide, You spent some time on this aswell. Great job :D

[ThomasBowstaff]

Does anyone know where you can find a warp drive?

[The Gentleman]

how do u use modules on this game

[BIGNATE7492]

Awesome help alot. Please do this to there wiki page so every can get help like this!

[Penny Royal]

Thanks for the info! I'm looking forward to more on this intriguing game!

[Spoon498]

This is a good start. I hope you add on to this more though.