Finshed the first level now and it's much better than my previous sloppy run after I figured out how to use the temporary invulnerability and atom bombs more effectively. It isn't perfect yet as there's places where I could've done a little different to get another kill or so, but this will do for the test run. I also changed the game speed from Normal to Turbo cutting the time by 30% (increasing the FPS from 35 to 50). It's harder to see what's happening, although it's faster... I can change it back to Normal for the next level if you think it'd be better.
A few things I've been using in this run:
-Invulnerability, given temporary after moving the ship down, up, down, then up while shooting, draining all your current shield. How long it lasts depends on how much shield you have at the moment, almost three seconds for my current shield.
-Two Atom Bombs, launched after moving the ship right, down, left, then up while shooting, draining two points of armour. You can't kill yourself by doing this.
These two abilities are ship specific and (apart from the invulnerability) won't be found on any other ship you can buy. Depending on how good abilities the other ships have, I might stay with this ship for the entire run. I will be changing weapons though but I'm not sure which one is the best to choose, so any advice is appreciated.
Encode here
http://youtu.be/e9w67bixcX0