Beginner's Guide to Not Dying

So you've had enough of this whole "death" nonsense, right? Come on in, sit down, grab yourself a beer.

Or, uh, just grab the whiskey bottle if it's been that kind of day, I guess.

So what got you this time?

Running Out of Air
Ah, that's a nasty way to go.

There's really not much to say here: turn off Auto-Inspect (shift-i) because it'll halve your oxygen consumption, watch your oxygen meter, buy a bunch of oxygen tanks if you can (but not more than one per awayteam member, they don't do any good beyond that). If you're running low on oxygen, but it's a close call, there's a few things you can try:
 * Emergency jumps with a jetpack only take a little oxygen (and usually get you at least slightly in the direction you wanted to go)
 * The larger your awayteam, the further you'll get when you're out of oxygen. Asphyxiation causes damage, not immediate death, so if there's more hit points in your team, you can run further on empty.
 * If you have a clear line of sight to your ship, or a communications satellite, try [r]adioing them to move the ship closer to you. Put it down about halfway between you and where the ship is now, so that the ship moves towards you even as you move towards it. (If you ask it to land right next to you, you'll just waste air while you wait for it to land.)
 * Also do not tell you ship to land anywhere if you dont know a clear path to the landing site. while it may seem a good idea to have your ship ahead of you, its a bad idea to land your ship inside a crater with no access points!
 * Spacesuits have an oxygen capacity of 300, armored suits usually have less (100-250) ! If you can reinforce the spacesuits in some shops, buy aux tanks and buy improved lung augments.
 * In mines, run through the oxygen rich gas bubble tiles, but do not shoot them !

Hostile Lifeforms
Oof, that's an even nastier way to go. But at least somebody's fed, right?

Remember, all life in the galaxy is trying to kill you. Yes, all of them. Even the herbivores cowering in the corner of the map dream red dreams of tasty redshirts. If they aren't attacking you now, they'll attack you soon, because they'll get hungry, decide you're horning in on their meal, realize you've cornered them, see a dead friend and blame you, or just declare that Those Blasters Don't Go With Those Shoes You Heretic, and then the claws will come out and there will be some kind of mess.

There are two somewhat-safe ways to deal with lifeforms: There is one completely safe way to deal with them: That said, there are a few things you can try to make dealing with lifeforms easier:
 * 1) Get them first, and kill them one by one when you can before then can gang up on you.
 * 2) *They breed. You can't kill all of them, and the new children - born to the world with the power of a fully-grown adult - tend to cluster together.
 * 3) Keep away from them entirely as much as you can.
 * 4) *This, of course, never works. Not completely, anyway. Just try to keep a lane from you to your ship, or at least keep a few spare redshirts around to distract the beasties.
 * 5) *If every member of your awayteam has camo gear, you'll be harder to see. This is usually hard to pull off unless you spend a fair amount of money on it.
 * 1) If you see an alien, dust off. Nuking them from orbit is optional, but always amusing.
 * Turn off Auto-Inspect (shift-i). Yes, I said it earlier, and I mean it even more now; you don't want the aliens taking two turns to your one.
 * Get some armament. Full Protective Suits are a decent balance between price and defense power, and close-combat weapons are cheaper than ranged weapons. Eventually, you're going to want disintegrators and adaptive bodyarmor for everyone, but if you manage that, you don't need this page.

Special Planets
That can be a nasty way to--- oh, who am I kidding? There are no good ways to die.

For your first dozen forays from the space stations, just avoid special planets entirely. Some are good, some are neutral, but the vast majority are simply going to kill you as quickly as they possibly can. There's the planet with the rock-brain that won't let you leave until you kill it---and it's guarded by dozens of hard-to-kill monsters. There's Dune, complete with sandworms. There's Apollo's world, and you don't get the option to worship him or even beg for mercy. Even some of the non-special planets, like run-of-the-mill pirate bases, are no picnic for an early-game or even a mid-game awayteam.

And don't even get me started on robots. If you see a robot, and you're not loaded for alien space-bear, then it's time to find a new planet. Most of the worlds with robots are special planets, but every now and then, you'll find a steel room full of robots down in an ordinary cave. There's not even any loot in those rooms! There's a heirarchy of robots, and the ones with the disintegrator beams are the nastiest; after that are the armored robots and the floating robots. But even run-of-the-mill defense robots are well-armed and decently-armored, and there's never just one robot.

Pirates
Oops, there went your bridge; always a horrible surprise for a merchant. Not a good way to go.

Your first several combats with pirates will probably just be a fighter or two, which is easy to take out with your starting armament - as long as your Gunner hasn't died a horrible planet-based death, or you're not too unlucky. After a while, though, five hull points and a ship's gun just doesn't cut it. Get yourself some shields, get yourself an engine worth speaking of, and even a few mines as a first defense. Later, of course, your horribly-beweaponed battleship is going to wipe the walls with pirates, but early on, just try to get out of combat alive.

Don't challenge the pirate king unless you really, really mean it. He can spot you even if you have a ship's cloaking device, and he has long-range missiles.

Special Ways of Dying
- Having your ship swallowed by lava. Occurs when you park your ride next to an active lava tile and the lava spreads to your ship. Somewhat rare. You can decrease the risk of this by keeping an eye on your ship and making sure lava never gets too close.

- Having your captain have a surgery accident. Even if you have the implant which lessens the risk of additional implants already on the captain. Just don't do it! Avoided by never giving your captain more than three medical implants.