This game spits you in the face and the nkicks you in the nuts

[Nanaki]

Getting good equipment is no problem, all you have to do is take some time off from the story mode, farm pirates, loot their stuff, and sell it on the market (this is not even counting the fact you can just go to the hidden caches thread, find some caches, and become an instant millionaire). Every once in awile you should visit a patrol station to offload the pirate escape pods which gives you more cash and a little bit of experiance.

The problem is skill points. The game is really skimpy on them, and this is on normal. I could kill thousands of pirates and still only get about a hundred or two skill points, barely enough for one high-tier skill. It especially sucks since skill points and the skills they provide are the only thing seperating you from the average enemy fighter, since enemy fighters are typically very well equipped.