Rebels in the sky is pretty open-ended — there's no single correct way to play. The overarching goal is to build a strong crew of basketball pirates, travel the galaxy, and eventually host your own tournaments. Here's a roadmap to get you started.

1. Run a Space Adventure

Your first priority is gathering resources. Head to your team panel's info subpanel and launch a space adventure. Destroy asteroids to collect Scraps and Gold, which you can sell at the local market for Satoshi.

Don't worry about surviving long at first — even a short run will net you useful materials. Press x to return to base before your ship gets destroyed, or you'll lose everything in your cargo hold.

2. Hire Some Pirates

Check the Pirates panel for free agents on the planet you're orbiting. Early on, don't overthink it — grab a few pirates that fill gaps in your roster.

You need at least 5 pirates to play games, but having more pirates guarantees you have some extra players during a game, so fill up your crew as soon as you can afford it.

3. Assign Crew Roles

Once you have a few pirates, assign them to crew roles. The key early roles are:

Don't leave pirates as Mozzos if you have open role slots — even a mediocre pirate in a role is better than an empty one.

4. Play Games

Basketball games are the core of the experience. Check the Games page for details on positions, tactics, and how matches play out. You can challenge nearby teams or set up auto-accept in your Own Team panel so your crew automatically plays local challenges. Try to play at least once a day — games build your team's reputation, which affects hiring costs and tournament invites.

5. Explore and Find Asteroids

Go on more space adventures and try to survive past 90 seconds. After that point, a large asteroid can spawn — fly into it to claim it for your crew. You can own up to 7 asteroids, and it's smart to find them around different planets to spread your reach across the galaxy.

6. Build Teleportation Pads

Once you own an asteroid, prioritize building a Teleportation Pad on it. This lets you teleport instantly from anywhere in the galaxy to that asteroid for just 1 Rum per crew member. Combined with asteroids near different planets, this creates a fast travel network that saves enormous amounts of time and fuel.

7. Work Toward a Space Cove

The endgame goal is building a Space Cove on one of your asteroids. It's expensive (180,000 Satoshi, 220 Scraps, 100 Gold) and takes 3 days, but it opens your asteroid to other players and lets you host tournaments.

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