Astrobatics/Power-ups and Weapons

Power-ups and Primary Weapon
The game features several power-ups, all of which help the ship in different ways, they do not provide any score when taken.
 * Turret upgrade - This power-up installs normal turrets first on your ship, one Turret upgrade will provide 1 Turrent, once the ship has 2 normal turrets, this power-up will upgrade the 2 normal turrets each by installing rocket launchers in them, resulting in your turret providing extra primary weapon power while also shooting straight rockets that deal a good amount of damage, the shots the turrets shoot/fire are affected by the Weapon power upgrade.


 * Weapon power upgrade - This power-up improves the damage of your Rear cannon, Primary cannon, Spread-fire (not including the Advanced Spread-fire), and Turret shots by one level each, this is the most valuable power-up as this improves your overall DPS, once your Primary and Rear cannon is maximized, they will "ignite" as they hit targets indicating that they deal great damage, it will take up to at least 10 Weapon power upgrades to maximize the ship completely, and this will be affected if say, you only have your primary weapons, you have your rear cannon, you have no turrets at all or at least 1 and 2, if you take a Weapon power upgrade and you are still missing a normal Turret or Rear cannon for example, they will be delayed by 1 or more Weapon power upgrade levels depending on how much you took before you finally got them, please refer to Scoring and Techniques on how to work around with this at least.


 * Spread-fire upgrade - This power-up improves the coverage of your primary cannon by adding spread-fire shots in 2 stages, the first Spread-fire upgrade will give you 2 additional spread out shots, and the second Spread-fire upgrade will give you Advanced Spread-fire by giving 2 more additional spread out shots for a total of 4 extra shots branching out of your Primary cannon, the first Spread-fire is affected by Weapon power upgrade for 1 time, and the Advanced Spread-fire isn't.


 * Rear-cannon - This power-up makes your ship gain a cannon at the back, which is useful along with the Mines for fending off enemies that come out from behind, the Rear cannon is affected by the Weapon power upgrade and has at least 5 - 6 upgrade levels.


 * Guard bot - This installs 1 guard bot to your ship for up to a total of 5 guard bots that surround your ship, the bots have quite a good number of uses, aside from using the bots to defend yourself from enemy fire and asteroids, you can also slam your guard bots to an enemy to destroy them or slam your guard bots to mines to destroy them.


 * Ship repair - This restores the HP of your ship, the higher your HP is the higher you will regain your HP from this power-up, this isn't quite common so avoid getting hit.


 * Extra life - This power-up gives you one extra life, this power-up is hard to spot as some can be obtained on say, a certain barrier or a quick enemy formation, some missions give this out straight ahead.

Extra Weapons

 * Mines - Each Mine power-up gives out 7 Mines, when you Right click or press Shift these mines will come out from the back of your ship, they don't inflict much damage on their own but one can stack or pack these mines into clusters for some good damage, the Mines are useful for fending off enemies that appear from the back of your ship and also for detonating enemy Mines.


 * Homing Missile - This launches 2 Homing Missiles that have a hitbox, which means that aside from being able to inflict great damage, these Missiles can also intercept enemy fire and they can also destroy Mines, each Homing Missile power-up gives 3, do not use these a lot as these missiles can save your life.


 * Laser - This fires a strong, 1 - 1.25 second purple Laser that can be panned to help destroy weak enemy hordes or Mines, the Laser inflicts great damage when one takes a full blow from it, the Laser can also destroy the cannons that reside in indestructible asteroids in Asteroid levels when aimed correctly at the center.


 * Shield - Activates a shield that lasts for up to 7 seconds, please take note that you should still be careful as sometimes even when your Shield is active and you try to ram into an enemy or asteroid for example, you will not take any damage but your Turrets will, only use this power-up if its a must as the Shield is not a common drop (usually appears on asteroid levels), and its worth a good amount of extra points.


 * Support Airstrike - Calls 3 ships that arrive into the screen, firing with their almost maximized Primary Cannons and Homing Missiles fast for 2 - 3 seconds before leaving, this only appears in select missions (Missions 6 and 15 for example) and you can only get up to 2 Support Airstrikes, mostly only 1, I recommend using this power-up only on bosses that really require this power-up such as the Mission 15 boss as this is worth a lot of extra score points, otherwise the Shield should do the job in protecting you without losing too much potential extra score.