space shooter collision detection

Most shooters use a rectangle slightly smaller than the player ship. Games like DoDonPachi did this and they were not a problem at all. If you are going to be spewing out hundreds of shots at once, go for a simple algorithem like rect collision or circular collision. It's traditional not to use sprite based collisions. Sprite perfect collsions are often a waste. What kind of shooter are you making? If you're going with a bullet hell or danmaku shooter you just use point distance sice the hitbox is tiny. If you are going with a horizontal shooter like R-Type or Gradius go with the rectangle method. Same with vertical.

Here is a good link from our shooter creation forum...
http://www.shmup-dev.com/forum/index.php?cat=18