this game is slow to start and takes alot of time to make your ship good. the steps to making your ship good without spending cash are: 1) collect as much uridium out of the bounus boxes as you can and buy sheilds lasers and engines. 2) buy the best ship you can buy with credits. 200k credits isnt hard to make if you sell your collected ore. 3.) build your skylab so it produces prometid. 4) send the prometid to your ship as often as you can. each full load should bring you about 300-600k credits. 5) save up credits to bid on all equipment you need. you can bid on stuff early in the morning to save credits. 6) join a clan that will help you bid on stuff. 7) kill stuff and bid on stuff till you have the max number of drones engines lasers etc. 8) get payback on anyone who ever killed u as a nub.