Beginner's Guide

GENERAL GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW
The game consists of two main modes, Station and Space. In Station mode while you are docked at a station you can talk with NPCs, accept missions, repair/upgrade/replace your ship, buy and sell Commodities and hire a Mercenary. In Space is where the main action happens where you can fly between stations, fight enemy ships, raid traders, mine resources from asteroids, explore etc...there are many options. Note that the game automatically saves your progress every time you undock from a station.

Buying new equipment is NEVER a loss
In this universe, you sell used equipment the same price you bought it. The way it works is simple : you can buy any equipment and switch back to another if it is not to your liking. It's fine to want to buy the biggest ship in the universe, but saving your money to jump a step in the list ships achieve nothing here if you have empty turret mounts. You can keep using older ships for a longer period of time and upgrade the weapons, defense and components accordingly. Change ships when it can give you an edge, don't stay overly attached to a piece of junk!

COMBAT
Whether you want to or not you will be involved in combat quite frequently, and your initial Hammerhead ship really can't handle much to begin with; you can die very easily in this ship if you aren't careful. To be able to handle combat you need to understand the ship systems you have available.

WEAPONS
Your ship has several weapon systems available.

Broadsides are a set of heavier cannons on the sides of every ship. Shot for shot they do some of the heaviest damage output available but they have a limited firing arc and if not aimed by holding down the right mouse button they have terrible aim. This is very important to note; DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE SHOWN DPS RATE OF BROADSIDE WEAPONS. Although on paper Broadsides could inflict the shown DPS rate given the damage per shot and the max firing rate, that's only if every shot hits at full rate, un-aimed, which would require you to be practically touching a very large enemy ship or structure. In more realistic combat at longer ranges with smaller targets, the actual DPS rate is the damage-per-shot divided by the Charge time; you need a full charge to be able to hit anything smaller than a Destroyer at any kind of decent range. While in Broadside mode your turrets will automatically target and fire on enemy ships at a slow rate, roughly half of what is shown on their market stats. In the ship equipment screen at a station you only need to buy one Broadside system to fit all of your cannons, so to get the total damage per salvo multiply the shown damage of the Broadside system by the number of Broadside Ports your current ship has. Because of this need to charge the weapons for them to aim properly it is generally recommended to get a system with the best damage-per-shot and a slower base firing rate, as long as the firing rate is faster than the charge time.

Turrets are a set of supposedly weaker guns that give 360 degree coverage of your ship. When you switch to Turret mode your Broadsides will not fire on their own but the turrets will fire at their full rate than that when they are automatically controlled, however sustained fire will overheat them and you will not be able to shoot them again for some time until they cool down. In the ship equipment screen at a station each turret has to be individually purchased and equipped. Turrets are also the only weapon type that can fit mining lasers and accurately target turrets on enemy ships and structures. In general Turrets come in three main types: Projectile, Beam and Missile.

Missile turrets launch various types of missiles that are guided and some have the longest potential firing range of any weapon system, as well as the highest damage-per-shot values allowing for large "alpha strikes" against targets. They do require a lock-on time to be able to track targets, but the biggest downside of this turret type is that they consume ammunition that you have to buy and there is a rather painful limit to how many you can hold. Not only is this increased money drain unwelcome, in a prolonged firefight you could run out and there's also the problem that missiles can be shot down or countered with Deflectors. Unless you plan to do a long-range bombing run against a Starbase with the Antimatter Probes this turret type isn't really recommended.

Projectile turrets are a very common weapon system and the first type you start with. They are meant for general combat and although they can have fast projectile speeds they can have difficulty hitting Fighter Craft that aren't flying in a straight line towards or away from you. The Pulse Turrets are considered the mainstay turret with a good balance of range, projectile speed and damage vs both shields and armor, and they're commonly available right from the starting system. They can fire instantly from the moment the trigger is pressed.

Beam turrets are instant beams, normally not very good against shields but good against armor, that have a short charge-up time from the point the firing button is pressed, then they shoot a constant beam at the target until they overheat or the trigger is released. They have pinpoint accuracy (in your hands at least, NPCs seem to miss semi-frequently) and due to the instant speed of the beam can be extremely effective in taking out Fighters; you can even redirect a still-firing set of beams to another fighter to hit it as well. The Particle Laser is the mainstay beam turret and can have very heavy damage output; it is worth noting that once you get to systems that sell Mk 3 versions of weapons the Particle Laser can out-damage the Pulse Turret against shields even factoring in the laser's damage penalty to them. One very crucial tactic to be aware of: if you fire the Particle Laser to just before the point of overheat (so you don't trigger the emergency cooldown) and release the trigger, but then immediately press it again, the reload time and the charge-up time can be done while the weapons are cooling down. Doing the cooldown and both built-in weapon delays simultaneously like this can really speed up your damage output over time, and with a turret-heavy ship like the Scarab you can put quite extreme damage on a target.

Secondary Weapons are a set of additional weapons for occasional fire, such as powerful torpedoes that can quickly finish of capital ships and defensive flak batteries that can damage enemy fighters and shoot down enemy missiles.

Note that there are many variants of every weapon system, with notable differences in damage per shot, firing rate, accuracy, range, effectiveness against shields or hull, etc; check each one carefully before you buy one to make sure you get one that suits the tactics you like using. In general, shorter-range weapons (usually) do more damage if you can keep in range.

DEFENSES
To protect your ship from destruction it has several layers of protection.

SHIELDS are your first main line of defense. They have less capacity than your Hull but can regenerate fairly quickly for free.

DEFLECTORS are an additional type of shield that can, on command, absorb a notable amount of damage for a short duration before entering a cooldown period. These are good to use when expecting a hit from a missile salvo or to give your main shields some precious few seconds to regenerate if they were close to dropping. Note that you cannot fire weapons while your Deflectors are active.

HULL is your second line of defense, and once this goes you're likely to die or at the very least have some of your subsystems damaged. A small percentage of the damage to your Hull will hit your subsystems right from the start, so you do want to try and keep your shields from dropping whenever possible.

ENGINES
No one wins fights by staying still, so you do need to understand your engine systems as well.

STANDARD ENGINES are just that; your regular propulsion system. The speed your ship can go depends on the ship's speed rating and the Engine module you have fitted. You can switch between five different speed settings: 0, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. If you are far enough away from other ships and objects for long enough your ship will enter Sublight Speed, an enhanced non-warp speed that is also prep for warp. Once you are in Sublight Speed long enough you will have the option to enter into warp.

BOOSTERS are a set of higher speed engines with a temporary energy pool (also known as turbo, afterburner, etc). They can give you a short quick burst of extra speed, a percentage multiplier of what you can currently go. You can boost at Sublight speed, which gives the same percentage multiplier to that speed as it would at normal thrust.

WARP DRIVE is your long-distance engine, and you'll be using it a lot. Without warp engines travelling between even two relatively close stations would take far too long to be feasible. Once you have travelled at Sublight Speed for a few seconds you will be able to engage warp. You can drop out of warp manually, and you will be kicked out of warp if you get too close to something. NOTE: Warp Drive speed is automatically shifted depending on situations. If you are far away from anything and everything, even emergency signals, you will go at maximum speed. If ships, rocks, signals etc come within radar range your ship will slow down, giving you time to react to the signal or just move on. This variable speed is especially important if you are chasing a Pirate Lord; while far away at your top speed you can easily catch up to them, but once you get within close radar range your ship will slow down significantly. If you're behind the Pirate Lord and his escort your ship will likely slow down enough to be just slightly slower than the Lord, meaning you will effectively never catch him. Your only options are to either catch him when he's close to a station and therefore not in warp (a very rare occurance) or predict his route, get in front of him and stop, so he effectively almost crashes into you. Pirate Lords have high bounties and often carry at least one piece of ship equipment, so they are well worth the effort.

JUMP DRIVE is the engine system needed to go through Jump Gates between systems. They serve no other purpose.

RARE GEAR
These are weapons and components that are dropped when you kill various enemies. Most of them are better than the same, generally available, component or weapon. Some are quite competitive even with the +1 gear of same type. Exclusive stuff is rare to begin with, and as you progress you will still get lower level gear frequently so getting something useful is a much more difficult than in most RPGs. E.g. having level 6 gear you'll get random level 1-6 rare tech so the chances of getting something of level 6 are smaller.

MAKING MONEY
Financial gain is going to be the most important aspect of the game for you at least initially. You need money, and a lot of it, to purchase and equip a good enough ship to handle the tougher areas and missions of the game. You have several methods of doing this at your disposal.

BOUNTIES
There are pirates all over the place, and some of them have Bounties on them which will be paid to you the instant you destroy their ship. However, know that Bountied pirates never fly alone so make sure you hunt them with a good ship.

Keep in mind some bounties will be on friendly targets (like Militia). There's no penalty in NOT hunting down a bounty. So friendly targets are best left alone.

Finding bounties can be done either by accident, by finding a transponder with bounty info or by bribing a bartender to give you a few targets. When paying a bartender don't do it at a far off station. Chances are there will either be no bounties around or a very limited amount of them. Paying for bounty info in more advanced systems can cost quite a bit (e.g. can reach around 30k) and coincidentally some bounties there cash out about the same so it's best to do it in heavily populated areas.

MINING
Mineable asteroids are scattered all over the sector, and using your Pulse can help you find the lucrative rocks in those fields. You can destroy asteroids with any weapon, however Mining Laser turrets combined with a special scanning component will yield the most ore. Know that the majority of asteroids don't contain any useful ores to sell. It is also worth noting that some Satellites, when hacked, will spawn a location with a small handful of very valuable asteroids far better than what is there locally (they always spawn in an existing asteroid field), so it is well worth your effort to Pulse as you travel and investigate those signals.

MISSIONS
Frequently involving combat, these are usually a search-and-destroy mission for a specific enemy or transporting some goods to a specific location with an ambush lying in wait en-route. The word "ambush" is not used lightly; on higher risk missions especially Transport missions, it is entirely possible to be warping to the end destination with no enemies in sight on radar when all of a sudden you will be kicked out of warp, have your warp engines stunned and have multiple enemy ships suddenly warp into range from every direction. This has even been known to happen more than once within one mission.

Use caution when choosing missions. A few things to be aware of: When not satisfied with the choice of missions it's quite easy to re-roll them. To do that accept all missions at a station and then abandon them as there is no penalty. Exit the station then dock again. Missions are randomly generated based on multiple factors. If after a few rolls the choices are still bad fly on to the next station. Try maybe a station of a different faction.
 * Affiliation changes: don't do missions that damage reputation with a specific faction that you don't want to be at odds with. Feel free to take missions that have you fighting Greel, Korians, Double Jacks, Murath or Viriax though. They're useless.
 * Distance: be aware that some missions will be in other systems (distance will show number of jumps). These can take a while to travel to and can mean going into a system that is more dangerous than you'd feel comfortable with. Best to focus on missions in one system before moving on to the next.
 * Risk: with some practice High and Very High risk missions can be completed for the reward money, but they tend to indeed be more dangerous (i.e. more time spent).
 * Pay: obviously, take the best paying jobs that satisfy your priorities but unless you really need the cash don't use the pay as the main choice factor.
 * Likely time it will take to complete: e.g. escort missions take longer usually while dead drops are just two trips.

COMMODITIES TRADING
This is one of your best sources of potential income, although it can be tricky. Different stations trade in different commodities and their prices fluctuate all the time, especially when a Special Event happens at a station such as a tech boom, mining rush, famine, war, etc...when you leave a station you save a record of all of the prices for both in-stock and wanted-out-of-stock commodities in that station which you can access from your Map. Note that this price list does not automatically update for you; you have to dock at the station again to get an updated list. Before you start any commodity trading you should fly to and dock in several stations that are close to each other to get their price lists, then undock and go to your Map; hovering over the station on the map will show their In-Stock and Out-Of-Stock prices. Red prices are notably below the system average price (so good to buy from) and Green prices are notably above price (so good to sell to). Also note that stations contain a limited quantity of In-Stock inventory that usually doesn't refresh until at least one game day passes.

One of the absolutely best situations for making a lot of money quickly is if you have one station with a high-demand event like Famine, and another close-by station with a wide variety of goods (preferably Scientific) with a Market Glut event. The Famine is the more likely event to stop once the NPC relief ship reaches it, but for as long as those two events are going you should literally drop what you're doing and trade between those stations as much as possible; if you catch the events early you should be able to make six figures worth of income in under an hour.

Traders that you meet will trade you goods at above average prices. Use them to sell expensive stuff, including contraband. They will offer to buy random stuff, so if you get the chance drop any cheap cargo first constraining them to buy expensive or illegal commodities and then pick your cargo again.

RESPONDING TO DISTRESS SIGNALS
Very useful activity. It increases your ranking with the Citizenry faction (giving more leeway when you attack citizens out of necessity or convenience), survivors (miners or traders) will thank you in cash for helping them, plus the traders that you save will be open for business. Be careful that there might be traps. Exit warp less than 100sm (ideally ~20sm) before contact and do a pulse scan. If there are both friendlies AND hostiles in the target area then it's genuine, if there are only hostiles - it's a trap. Though you could still go there for the bounty. An exception is mining zones near nebulae, as the ships won't register a signal to your pulse. Each Mining Scow that survives will give you a separate reward.

UNIDENTIFIED SIGNALS
These are transponders that you need to hack in order to get the info they contain. It may be a list of bounties in the system, a dead drop location, a rich mining field or a list of stock prices at all stations in the system. Sometimes the transponders are defended (i.e. there might be hostiles around). Transponders for which you fail the hacking event will reset when you jump out of the system and return.

INVASIONS / SIEGES
These events start before the invader (or militia in case of embargoes) reach the destination. They're easier to end if you catch the craft in-flight as it is lightly defended. Most of them have bounties set so you get the bounty cash plus the chance of a component drop. You may want to visit the targeted station first though, to take advantage of the higher prices by unloading your cargo hold.

PIRATE LORDS
Can be quite tough to beat, due to escort. Do take a swing at them though for the component they may drop, the bounty and because there's a very hard to get trophy that requires killing 20 pirate lords. Start early, finish early.

FACTIONS
The only factions of interest in Rebel Galaxy are Citizenry, Militia, Red Devils and the Merchant and Mercenaries guilds.

The other factions don't matter as they don't have any stations, hence you can't buy any of their ships and equipment and they don't give out any missions so there's no chance of improving relations with them (these include Double Jacks, Korian Outsiders, Greel Syndicate, Murath Scavangers and Viriax). Kill them without mercy.

There's also the Outsiders faction, not to be confused with the Korian Outsiders. Their stations provide occasionally missions for any other faction. Quite low on tech though.

Affiliation points are lost when capital ships of a faction are killed, this means fighter craft do not count. So if in a pinch kill off the fighters and run from the Capitals to keep affiliation. Destroying a faction's ship while being hostile loses you 1 affiliation point; while being neutral 5 points; when friendly - 10 points. If another ship lands the killing blow you won't lose the affiliation points, which is handy for missions with conflicting affiliation. The Mercenary Guild offers a lot of such missions.

In order to destroy a capital ship without losing points there are a few tricks that can be used, but it's tough so have good gear when attempting. First, de-fang the ship by targeting and destroying its turrets, careful not to damage the ship though. Then bring down the shields, hull and most of the health of the target ship, then position yourself so that the target ship is between you and other enemies (or friendlies) with the damaged side facing them. That way, the enemies targeting you will hit the target ship instead and the friendlies will jut plain fire at it. You won't get the bounty this way though, but it's a nice trick in order to finish a mission without affecting affiliation more than necessary.

CITIZENRY
The main faction in the game. Has the most stations and most of the tech. Miners and traders are part of citizenry. You start neutral to them so can dock at their stations. Affiliation should improve as you complete optional missions and respond to distress signals. Tech isn't restricted on ranks, so as long as you're neutral all is good.

The way to get good with Citizenry is by completing missions (if you have access to their stations) or helping out miners/traders if you're hostile to them.

The way you'd usually lose affiliation is by attacking miners/traders for their cargo. Also some missions, especially for the Red Devils may lead to it.

MILITIA
You start neutral toward them so can dock at their stations. They have a couple of exclusive craft but the main reason you'd want to stay at least neutral to them is because they have a lot of firepower in the galaxy that you don't want shooting at you at each encounter. Becoming friendly with Militia doesn't bring any extra benefits except they are more likely to accept bribes. Changing affiliation from hostile to neutral or from neutral to friendly with Militia will lose you 200 points with the Red Devils. Plan accordingly.

Gaining affiliation with Militia means completing missions for them. Their missions are available at all stations except Red Devils'.

Losing affiliation is quite easy as well by either destroying their ships, completing missions that decrease affiliation or by being caught with contraband (the only way out of which is by giving a bribe and that can frequently fail).

RED DEVILS
They have a lot of stations throughout the galaxy and can be a significant source of income via missions. They have a few exclusive ships and some exclusive gear. Nothing too valuable in the end but can be useful depending on the progress. You start hostile towards them, which means they'll attack you on sight. It is highly recommended to become at least neutral to them due to the ease of traveling that this brings: warping out when near their ships; plus of course giving that many more stations to dock and trade and repair/rearm at.

Tech at their stations isn't rank-restricted so being neutral suffices. Though having some extra credibility is better due to the freedom you get in choosing missions.

Contrary to what it may seem, it is possible to be neutral/friendly with both Red Devils AND the Militia. The way to do it is by planning ahead and having a buffer of at least 200 affiliation points with the Militia when about to transition from hostile to neutral or from neutral to friendly with the Red Devils to offset the affiliation drop that you'll get.

Due to the mission disparity (almost anything Red Devils want you to do upsets Militia but Militia fights a lot with Greel, Murath and Korians as well) it is recommended to take any mission for the Devils while taking only those Militia missions that don't make you fight Red Devils.

MERCHANT AND MERCENARIES GUILD
These are guilds that you need to pay a one-off fee to become a member of. Benefits include access to exclusive ships and components, though this becomes more important later in the game.

KORIANS, MURATH, GREEL, DOUBLE JACKS, VIRIAX
Factions useful for cannon fodder only. Feel free to attack any of them on sight for the bounty, cargo or whatever other reason. Though there are usually better ways of getting cash than chasing them around. Feel free to take on missions that make you attack any of them. Some of the Merc Guild missions will have you fulfill a contract for Korians or Greel. Keep in mind that will still only increase affiliation with Mercenaries Guild, not the respective employer.