Transcendence

• Ships are a balancing act between no. of hardpoints and cargo space. It is possible to get extra cargo space in exchange for a hardpoint if you find a cargo expansion, and that will make the lighter ships much easier to play with.

• It sounds stupid but it's very easy to forget: remember you can go back. This will let you make sure you're selling the right thing to the right location - junk to a junk merchant, luxury goods to a hotel, and so on. It is a roguelike, and remembering where things are is important.

• Each new system, you generally want to follow the marked orbits around. Usually, any bases or locations will be near to features on the orbit, but not always.

• Program modules are almost universally good. Where they aren't, the bad effect usually goes away if you sit somewhere safe then hold down the fast forward key for a while. Barrels are a bit more dangerous - make sure you have some decent shields or replacement armor in case you open an acid barrel. Otherwise, they're potions.

• Early on, as a new player, autoturrets are probably your best bet because they take the pressure off of aiming. The big cargo ship starts with one, but they're not too hard to find as other ships.

• An early reactor upgrade can help a lot, but can be tricky to save up for.