The game is played as the captain of a spaceship in the near future. Your aim is to explore the entire universe and of course to become better than your fellow players.
Battles can be PvE (against NPC's) or PvP (against other players in the game). You can buy, find and get upgrades for your weapons to gain an advantage over your enemies and additionally gain an 8% damage increase every time a level up is acquired.
Artifacts give fixed or percentage bonuses to the player's health, shield strength, armor, damage and resistance. There is a limit of 5 artifact slots available, limiting the number of artifacts that can be simultaneously equipped to 5, forcing players to strategically select which artifacts to use. Weapons can be found or purchased using in game currency and can be upgraded to increase damage, reduce energy cost, increase the number of projectiles fired (certain weapons only), improve the targeting arc (certain weapons only) and increase blast radius (certain weapons only).
Source: Official Astroflux wiki.