Hardspace: Shipbreaker

• Don't get stressed about the time limits. You can take as many shifts as you need to clear a work order and there is no penalty for stopping and moving on to a new ship. The only consideration is whether you will break even moneywise at the end of a shift. You need to clear about 500,000 per shift to cover costs.

• The number of days that shows in the contracts screen is how long that listing is up for, not how long it is expecting you to compete the contract in.

• The game puts emphasis on returning to the HAB by the end of shift, but there doesn't seem to be a penalty for failing to do so. You can work until the timer runs out and any tethers will even still be active the next shift.

• You can put your hands in front of you, it's Z or X on a keyboard. It's not necessary, but pretty helpful and versatile. It softens impacts, latches you to the surface for precision cuts, lets you crawl through tight spaces and is strong enough to stop you from getting whipped around during explosive decompression or from getting sucked into a furnace.

• Lvl 1 cut points can be cut with the precision laser cutter. Lvl 2 needs the line cutter alternative fire or a well-upgraded cutter. Lvl 3 needs demolition charges.

• Sweeping the crosshairs over a piece of material is the surest way to know what bin it goes into. The structural scanner will mostly be correct, but filters by structural elements rather than material and may be fooled by an aluminum panel among the nanocarbon ones or a nanocarbon pillar among the aluminum supports. Grappled material will tell you what bin the grappled section goes into and may be fooled by multi-material sections that need to be separated with the cutter.

• The handheld grapple strongly resists letting items rotate relative to you once you've latched to them. If you need to rotate a long piece to fit it through a doorway, you may need to just circle the entire ship while latched to it to get the angle right. Alternatively, objects free spin while on a tether and will usually find whatever angle they need so long as they're pulled in the right direction.