Anytime that you’re having trouble eating a particularly tough boss or stage, load up your ship with tech mods which restore your health points or provide a temporary shield. Then take your hit and run strategy even further, using the shield to race in and bombard the enemy ship with hits, and recovering your hit points as often as you need to.
You either earn a bronze medal, a silver medal, or gold metal on a level depending on how much of your maximum health you have left over. The easiest way to earn silver and gold medals is to keep your shield how are ups and your health power ups in the tech mod positions. In addition, skip a planet or two, and then later in the game, after you have stronger weapons and better ships, go back and easily beat the enemy.
Anytime that you gain an experience level, the weapons, tech mods, and other goodies in the store will generally automatically upgrade by one level as well. However, your current equipment will not be upgraded automatically. Use the Forge to combine multiple pieces of equipment together, because forged items will automatically take on your current experience level.
The rarity of the equipment that you earn in the Forge is somewhat random. You almost always turn an uncommon item and you will earn a rare item fairly frequently; however, your chances of earning a legendary item are still extremely unlikely, regardless of what you combine together.
If you want to get an excellent starship for as little antimatter as possible, first, you need to have at least four starships. Then, take three starships that you don’t want, throw them in the Forge, pay the gold to forge them together, and wait until they finish. You’ll earn a much better starship once it’s finished forging.
Leveling up your starship can be pretty expensive, so if you have in mind a starship that you want to buy, purchase it after you gain the highest player level that you can before you get stuck. The starships in the store will automatically be leveled up to equal your player level, yet the price won’t rise at all.