If you hope to stay alive for long in Dead Space, you will need to earn some coin. Credits are the galactic standard currency, and even aboard a ship infested with Necromorphs, you'll need plenty of spending power to back up your firepower.
Where can credits be found in Dead Space? For that matter, what should you prioritize purchasing, and why? We've got the answers that'll help you smash your way to riches.
Where To Find Credits
Credits are plentiful, but so are the reasons you'll need them. In other words, there's a cycle involved — you probably won't be hanging on to a ton of them at any given time. Firstly, and certainly most obviously, you can find loads of credits just lying around in the game world.
Before long, you'll be locating all kinds of containers. Cargo crates line the decks, and lockers will often contain valuables including cash. If you make clever enough use of the kinesis technique, you can even pull free thousands of credits that would not have been in reach otherwise. Think of it like playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and busting out one of Link's strange magnetic skills, except you're doing it near-constantly to comb every area, and also it's dark and dreary and everything wants you dead.
Stomping on Necromorph corpses can produce credits, which is a bit funny until you consider you're stepping on what's left of human beings who carried the money with them in their pockets before their harrowing end. Then it's just sad. Waste not, want not.
Additionally, you'll doubtless run into instances where a new weapon just isn't clicking with you. The ammunition available strewn throughout the Ishimura for it won't do you much good, then, so don't be afraid to sell ammo left and right if it pertains to a gun you have no interest in. This is probably the peak money-maker, though in a survival horror game like Dead Space, where resource scarcity plays a vital role in its mechanics, it might not seem readily apparent how handy it is to just get rid of stuff.
What To Purchase With Credits
Of course, you could just constantly stock up on medical packs and call it a day. Staying alive is the name of the game. But there's more, much more, that you should focus on acquiring in Dead Space.
New RIGs
RIGs — Resource Integration Gear — should be priority one when spending credits. You will find a schematic for a higher-tier RIG in Chapters Four, Seven, and Ten; these correspond with RIG Level Three, Four, and Five, respectively. RIG Level Two requires no schematic, and can be purchased from the store straightaway... provided you have 10,000 credits already.
Not only do RIGs enhance Isaac's resistance to damage, effectively increasing the number of hits it takes before you get a game over; they also increase the number of inventory slots available to the player, so in a sense, you technically can't 'just stock up on medical packs and call it a day', after all.
Nodes
Nodes are nearly as pivotal as RIGs. They're used in several ways, including upgrade-crafting weapons and even those hard-earned RIGs. Think of them as the one-size-fits-all crafters' kits.
Ammo And Medical Packs
If you've got the spare credits, by all means, go for it. Just remember, you'll find these by the buckets all over the ship. But then, ditto on the credits. Just try not to blow the budget on these, since you never know when you might need another node.