What do you actually buy?

[Jammrock]

I love the vulcan and swarm missiles. I had a ship, forget which one, that had a vulcan and two missile swarms. Even with no crew teleporter I annihilated the flagship. Have yet to get swarm + explosive regenerator. That would be a fun combo.

Burst Laser III is the best regular laser weapon. 2 energy, three shots. Once had two of those with two burst II's and weapon pre-ignitor. Ships didn't last long.

I'm starting to really like mind control + cloak + teleport in the late game. Mind control a crew and wait for 1-2 crew members to attack. Knock out med/clone room and teleport in. Wipe out crew. Bonus scrap galore. Mind control works best on large crews imho.

Cloak is almost always a must. Unless you have weapon pre-ignitor and a crazy arsenal.

Crew Teleporters aren't a must, but I prefer teleport play if I have the right crew.

[Snow Job]

Weapons: There's good weapons and bad weapons, but I'll pay for most of them if I have to. If the game isn't dropping weapons and I need to keep up with enemy shields, so help me I will buy a shoddy Burst Laser I. Furthermore, the best weapons take priority over everything else, and their names are: Burst Laser II, Flak I, Ion Bomb, Breach Bomb II.

Systems: All of these are good. I buy each one frequently.

Drones: Don't like paying for drone schematics very much. Either Defense Drone is highly valuable, and of course I'll pay for them, but if I'm actually using Drone Control then I probably got a DD1 already bundled with it, or found one out in space. The one drone type I'm most likely to pay for is the Ion Intruder.

Augmentations: Half of these are pure luxury items, and most of the rest seem to be best for very specific loadouts. Long Range Scanners and Automated Reloader are the only augmentations I buy with any regularity, though many others are very good.

[Captain_obvious]

Weapons: I pretty much always plonk down money for BL2 or Flak 1, as they tend to work with any build. I also get Small Bomb a lot, as I often keep it in the hold until the Flagship and then unleash all my amassed bombs on the enemy crew. Ion II also gets picked a lot because it works so well with many combos.

Systems: I almost always go for hacking, and if not, MC for the final stage of the boss. Everything else is decided by individual strategy with each ship.

Drones: I only ever really spend money on Defense Drones, but occasionally I buy a Combat drone to help burn down the Flagship supershield. The rest don't really seem worth the money.

Augments: Long Range Scanners, Automated Reloader, Scrap Recovery Arm are instant buys. So is Reconstructive Teleport if I'm playing with teleporters, and Pre-Igniter if I have a good loadout.

Crew: I try not to buy crew, but I will fork out for Mantis and Rocks for boarders, Engi for the events, and Zoltans for extra power. Also, a guy with +2 shield skill is really valuable.