Fantastic game

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1: play with friends and communicate via comms. It's a lot more fun.
2: 2 engineers, 1 gunner, 1 pilot. 1 engineer focuses purely on the hull, the other runs around and fixes everything else, occasionally jumping on guns if needed.
3: test out the ships, see which suits your play style more.
4: fucking communicate!
5: watch some tutorials and other gameplay videos.