A Beginner's Guide to Space Pirates and Zombies

First I want to get out of the way the idea that SPAZ is a great game. There are great things in it, yes, but overall it's not. I'll explain why you should never play it, ever, in the review.

And now that I've gotten you excited about Space Pirates and Zombies, heer iz yor beeginnerz gauyd!

First off, do not play on a large galaxy. Playing on one will mean that you'll just have to grind more to find upgrades for your ships. The game scatters upgrades around the galaxy, and a "small galaxy" is a big enough place to do a scavenger hunt.

Next tip: In the galactic and systems maps, you'll see dollar signs next to stars and planets. These indicate where upgrades are. The game will tell you this, but I ignored the game and now hate myself. Do what I say so that you'll avoid hating yourself.

Another tip: The game will tell you that you should field the biggest ships you can. What it's really saying is that you shouldn't, because you don't have enough money. In the fun fights where your enemies have ships as strong (or stronger) than yours, your ships are going to get murdered, and the big ships cost something like forty or a billion times as much as the smaller ones. In general the most cost effective strategy involves one big ship and no more big ships.

Subsequent tip: Press F2 and tell big damaged ships to flee for repairs.

Tip #11: Play this game during a vacation in which you want to be depressed. It's a long, often dull, addictive game. It's comparable to soloing Diablo III and data entry.

Final Tip: When you run out of the game's in-game currency "Rez" (basically rocks) go to a mining base, and have your rez-collecting ships collect from the endless supply of rocks. It may take awhile for them to collect the desired amount of rez, but you can do something else while they work. You can exercise. You can read. You can set the game to windowed mode and surf the Internet or play a better game.