Now, more info.
You start out with two spare lives. If you die with zero lives, the game is over.
While playing, you have two main stats you should keep an eye on: 'autoshield' and energy. (The reason why I call it autoshield rather than just shield is because some ships have shield abilities.) Autoshield should explain itself: how many more hits you take until you DIE and lose a life. The purpose of energy is slightly less obvious. Some weapons require various amounts of energy. If you are out of energy and use such a weapon, it will start taking from your autoshield instead. Energy replenishes itself; autoshield does not.
Each ship has four stats: Speed, Power, Rate, and Endur. Speed is how fast the ship moves. Power is how much energy the ship has. Rate is the speed at which it fires bullets. Endur is the autoshield level of the ship. I'm thinking about having score bonuses if you use ships with lower stats.
That brings me to scoring. Different enemies award different point bonuses. The player is also scored based on accuracy (number of bullets that landed on a destructible target divided by total number of bullets fired). Some medals can also be awarded for outstanding achievements in a stage: i.e. Perfect Shot for having 100% accuracy, or Tidy Work for clearing all the enemies in a stage. Every 500,000 points, the player gains a life.
Customizable controls? Pleeease?
Haha, do the controls seem less than optimal? I'll look into customization.
I actually think I've ended up designing this game to be played with a game controller. With that, you could do crazy stuff like moving around and shooting W1 and W3 (and W2 or W4 at the same time if your thumb is thick enough) while having P2 activated and S1 charging. (that would use a whole friggen lot of energy at once tho)