There are several Officer types but I choose the Transmutor with Asteroid Navigator skill which lets you mine the dense asteroid areas which a ship usually cannot mine as the best way to earn credits in the early section of the game is Asteroid mining. This choice gives you the ability like the Asteroid Mining ship.

Hyperspace Savant your warpdrive recharges faster and you jump further by one sector per level.
Full Spectrum Shielding your ship is immune to Radiation Belts then Ion Storms then Black Holes.

The most important decision is which type of Captain and which skill to go with first.

Other very good choice is Engineer with Damage Control as hull damage is expensive to fix and Operative with Credentials as this lets you onto any station even if the owners don't like you.

When your Captain goes up a level the total number of officers on the ship increases by one until you reach a total of six.

These three are the most important to make your game easier. I will just give the most useful skill from what they can give you.

Engineering Damage Control Hull Damage repair.
Operative Credentials Dock at any station.
Pathfinder Radiant Reflectors Reduces laser gate and radiation damage to away team.

After playing the game for a while you can get the Cruiser design which is opened by installing a Generator with WEP 3 DEV 6 onto any ship. The Cruiser has good Hull, 40 Crew which means away team of 10, reasonable Cargo of just over 20 spaces. The thing that I like most about the Cruiser is that you start with a WEP 3 DEV 3 Reactor. A more advanced challenge that I play more now is to start with the Scraphound. No, shields or armor but you start with crafting from turn one.


Increase Sensors range. I prefer having Range 4 preferably Range 5
Quick Recharge Rate on Weapons. My ideal is Light Ship Weapon Count Down 1 but will accept 2, Ship Weapon maximum 3 and Heavy Ship Weapon I like about 6 turns.
Increase Weapons Range. Ideal is equal to Sensors range but only allow one less than sensors range.
Decrease Shield Cooldown.


Protecting against Ion Storm, Radiation and Closeness to Black Holes is very important being the following devices Faraday Cage, Radiation Shunt and Gravitational Reflector.

Comm Jammer Prevents enemies calling reinforcements both in Space and on Away Missions. Less reputation losses from combat.
Warp Breach Allows warping without a warp point. Some sectors only have a Worm Hole to leave and it's random which sector you end up in.
Shield Regenerator Recharges your shield every turn no matter what the Shield Cooldown is.

The most important range for your away team is Vision 5 with your Space Suit because those annoying Space Sponges have range 4 weapons.

I mainly use Eviscerator melee weapon as it gives you a free strike back against a melee enemy.

Always improve your space suit when you can.

Hand Scanners allows you to see where the enemies are inside space ships.

Always open the grey lockers on ships as the only draw back is that it could be empty.

With early exploring the two most important devices are Mountain Climbers and Water Walkers

The most important thing about combat with Approaching Infinity is that distance that you can see is probably the most important thing there is. Improve your ship sensors and space suit visibility range as soon as you can. This gives you reaction time to either move or attack.

Spacesuits, I try to have at least VIS 5 when I get near Sector 10.

Ships, I like to get Sensors RNG 6 (Range) or more as a primary feature then TGT (Targetting).

Speed of your ship and away team are also important as you can move to your advantage. Moving away from the enemy to give more shots before they get closer is as important as moving into weapons range.

Combat inside a shipwreck moving to where the enemy is single file only is key to surviving longer.