Hello all! I'm a bit of a newbie so sorry in advance if I end up sounding like 4 year old...

I've recently discovered the wonders of gapidraw and am currently learning how to put a side scrolling shooter (think r-type kinda thing) together. My current headache is writing the code to move the baddies (or their bullets) around the screen. Quite frankly, I don't know where to begin. I've bodged a crude bit of code that gives the aliens coordinates and basically just does a x++ and y++ (or --) till those coords are reached. I'm thinking that isn't the best way to do things. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to where I can find the answer to this? I've scoured the net to no avail!
Thanks!