Made a little progress on my game. My teammates have been working hard to help me out- we've changed the concept a little so that it's turrets shooting at the player instead of other ships- it's easier to program a turret shooting towards the player instead of a ship flying around and shooting them. 

I've got functioning particles for destroying characters and boosting- the thrusters on the ship function great!

Working a little here and there on powerups and now the turret functionality. Will update some more later.