STGT 2k6- Week #2 Armed Police Batrider

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:47 am

The SD linked is information taken directly from Raizing's old site, so I would say that that has the more correct information.

As for "doing a Garegga", try persuading Twiddle. ^_-

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:08 am

Nemo - Feka USA - 3,013,110 - 5

howmuchkeefe · Post by **howmuchkeefe** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:55 am

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/7493/batr0000ba4.jpg

howmuchkeefe - Team Old Schoolers - 1,372,250 - 3

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:30 am

Icarus wrote:The SD linked is information taken directly from Raizing's old site, so I would say that that has the more correct information.

As for "doing a Garegga", try persuading Twiddle. ^_-

What looks like the rank value is a 24-bit value at 20F9D1.

You can watch this by inserting this in a new line in your cheat.dat file:
:batrider:00200026:20F9D1:00000000:FFFFFFFF:Watch Game Rank (Dec)

I'll continue working out what happens to it.

Also, it turns out changing the fire rate doesn't affect the value as much as it used to in Garegga. All that influences the rank from there is the bullets you fire.

Some values of note:

Grazing raises the numerical rank value, but I don't know exactly how much, but it's a tiny bit.
Picking up the cash lowers the numerical rank value (increasing rank, basically) by 1024
Discharging your bomb lowers numerical rank by ~32768
There is no "medal start-up penalty".
Ruining your medal chain, again, does not do anything to your rank. Thanks for trying, though

Losing a life at stock 2 affects rank a lot more than losing a life when your stock is at 3.

Anyone cluing the Garelab guys on this?

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:51 am

Twiddle wrote:What looks like the rank value is a 24-bit value at 20F9D1.

You can watch this by inserting this in a new line in your cheat.dat file:
:batrider:00200026:20F9D1:00000000:FFFFFFFF:Watch Game Rank (Dec)

I'll continue working out what happens to it.

Also, it turns out changing the fire rate doesn't affect the value as much as it used to in Garegga. All that influences the rank from there is the bullets you fire.

Some values of note:

Grazing raises the numerical rank value, but I don't know exactly how much, but it's a tiny bit.
Picking up the cash lowers the numerical rank value (increasing rank, basically) by 1024
Discharging your bomb lowers numerical rank by ~32768
There is no "medal start-up penalty".
Ruining your medal chain, again, does not do anything to your rank. Thanks for trying, though
Losing a life at stock 2 affects rank a lot more than losing a life when your stock is at 3.

Wow, that was quick! I think you have the title of "shmupsforum official Raizing rank hacker". Keep up the good work! ^_-

I didn't know that cash off the first boss increases rank (although pickups are considered as rank increase problems, hence the need to drop everything and limit firepower). Its a bit of a tradeoff given that its worth a decent amount of points which helps in getting those vital Extends.

And I figured that rank decreases were stock-dependent. Thanks for confirming that and some of my other observations. ^_^

Twiddle wrote:Anyone cluing the Garelab guys on this?

I think you're the first person online to actually hack Batrider's rank system. I've found nothing on Batrider besides VTF-INO's Special Course boss guide. Garelabo only bothered with Garegga, but given the similarities between both games, I think you have an easier task of working out what does and doesn't affect rank.

No wonder I found it easier to play the game Garegga-style.

thesuperkillerxxx · Post by **thesuperkillerxxx** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:00 am

thesuperkillerxxx - Super Buffet S.T. - 4,203,900 Stage 5 - Strawman (a) - PCB(taste the pain!)

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:09 am

Icarus wrote:And I figured that rank decreases were stock-dependent. Thanks for confirming that and some of my other observations. ^_^

Whereas dying with 3 lowers rank by ~300k, you're looking at a ~1.2 million rank loss by dying with 2 ships left.

Conversely, picking up an Extend at stock 2 will raise rank over twice as much as picking up an Extend at stock 1. Picking up at 3 is even more frightening. I haven't bothered seeing what dropping extends does, or what effect Special Extend has yet.

I think you're the first person online to actually hack Batrider's rank system. I've found nothing on Batrider besides VTF-INO's Special Course boss guide. Garelabo only bothered with Garegga, but given the similarities between both games, I think you have an easier task of working out what does and doesn't affect rank.

Garelab's able to get actual rank modifier values more accurately than I am, so forwarding such information to them would be very useful.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:15 am

Thanks, Twiddle. If/when you get more info, I'd be happy to compile it again, if you'd like.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:17 am

Twiddle wrote:
Icarus wrote:And I figured that rank decreases were stock-dependent. Thanks for confirming that and some of my other observations. ^_^
Whereas dying with 3 lowers rank by ~300k, you're looking at a ~1.2 million rank loss by dying with 2 ships left.

Conversely, picking up an Extend at stock 2 will raise rank over twice as much as picking up an Extend at stock 1. Picking up at 3 is even more frightening. I haven't bothered seeing what dropping extends does, or what effect Special Extend has yet.

Fascinating. No wonder I find it more difficult fighting Grubby when I have three in stock. Time to redo that suicide strategy. ^_^;;

Twiddle wrote:Garelab's able to get actual rank modifier values more accurately than I am, so forwarding such information to them would be very useful.

Go ahead and contact them, I'm sure they'll be interested in finding out some fresh info on Batrider. They could probably give you some help with the hacking as well.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:40 am

Shatterhand - Team Old Schoolers - 2,548,280 - Stage 4 - Strawman (A)

I love this game, but I suck at it. I wonder how the heck I managed to finish this game twice.... oh well, Advanced course is harder than normal course.

Lots of room for improvement... I keep dying at the Sky High boss because I want to milk it.

Maybe I should just try to survive as much as I can, the way I used to play this game back when I thought "Rank" had something to do with how well placed you are in a hi-score table

Guess our team is fucked on this week. Unless Herr Schatten or Turrican shows up with a miracle somewhere

Just wait on for the retro week though

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:43 am

A minor update. Thus far, I'm really not sure what kind of help I'm going to be to the team on this one. Nothing I do or try seems to increase my score much, and after reading the strategy guide elsewhere, the only thing I learned was how to die faster

. At least this time I made it to the boss...

The Coop - The Old Schoolers - 3,500,640 - Stage 5 - Strawman x 3

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:06 am

well, your score is 1 million better than mine, heh

We are screwed

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:14 am

Unlike Battle Garegga, this game gets harder if you make an effort to score higher, unless you do some serious rank control (like staying at stock 2 to take advantage of the severe rank drop at dying there)

ArcticXC · Post by **ArcticXC** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:04 am

I'm not a part of the contest, but I'm just playing along for fun. Seems like once I die, I have no chance of recovering.

Also, Carpet is awesome. Doubled my previous high score the first time I played as her.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:48 am

ArcticXC wrote:I'm not a part of the contest, but I'm just playing along for fun. Seems like once I die, I have no chance of recovering.

Actually, you can potentially get back the amount of power you have for your shot and option and one more. You also get one and a half bombs added to your bomb stock.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:59 am

Zakk - Team Cowboy - 2,557,030 - Stage 5 - Strawman(A)

ArcticXC · Post by **ArcticXC** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:09 am

Twiddle wrote:
ArcticXC wrote:I'm not a part of the contest, but I'm just playing along for fun. Seems like once I die, I have no chance of recovering.
Actually, you can potentially get back the amount of power you have for your shot and option and one more. You also get one and a half bombs added to your bomb stock.

Yeah, I think it's more of a mental thing.

Lately I've just been popping a bomb then grabbing all the powerups before it wears off. Complete waste, but better than being gimped I guess.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:14 am

In Raizing games (except for Dimahoo), dying is great, unless it's your last ship.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:16 am

I knew this was going to happen as soon as I posted.

Zakk - 2,819,800 - Team Cowboy - Stage 4 - Strawman(A)

1up · Post by **1up** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:14 am

ok, Ive never played this game before and have a few questions.

I looked on world-of-arcade and theres cheat codes for certain things.

1. for more ships
2. for single ship selection

Is it allowed to enter these? Is it more beneficial to do the single ship selection instead of a team?

Also, as I understand its all about collecting the medals, not letting any slip by? Is this correct?

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:17 am

Shatterhand wrote:Guess our team is fucked on this week. Unless Herr Schatten or Turrican shows up with a miracle somewhere

Don't hold your breath.

I hate Raizing and their huge selection of playable characters. I could spend the whole week just trying to figure out which character I feel the most comfortable with, but then I wouldn't get any actual scoring done. So far I have only been able to try a few of the characters and I seem to get good results with Strawman and Miyamoto. Playing with Chitta also feels pretty good, but I seem to be unable to score well with her. It's a mystery to me.

I really have to decide on a character soon, but I don't want to repeat what I did in Blazing Star week, when I wasted almost the whole week playing with Peplos and switched to Dino 246 (and re-learning the game with that ship) far too late.

It also seems like I should start to do some serious rank management, as I start to suck totally as the game progresses. Must... refuse... urge... to keep those lives.

Anyway, here's my first crap score after a couple of tries:

Herr Schatten - Team Old Schoolers - 2,682,860 - Stage 5 - Strawman (A)

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:48 am

Dropping Extends doesn't lower rank, sorry to disappoint you guys.

Please note that these values are for Advanced Course and may be different in Normal Course. However, rank control in Normal Course isn't very important, as the game doesn't last nearly as long as to make it difficult later on.

Also, rank by shooting and survival time is very minor--the survival time rank starts at 4 per frame and "firing blanks" does not increase rank at all, which means you can safely jack the fire rate up to 60. Also, shooting doesn't do much to the rank either.

Rank Reduction methods:
Grazing: I'm inclined to say reduces 128 rank per bullet per frame but I can't make MAME move on frame by frame. I wouldn't do it myself -- the grazing hitbox is only very slightly bigger than the actual player hitbox.
Dying at 3 stock - ~262144 rank reduction
Dying at 2 stock - ~1048576 rank reduction
Dying at 1 stock - ~4194304 rank reduction and a game over

Dropping extends, and dropping 10k medals does absolutely nothing.

Rank modifiers by collecting extends:
Collecting extend at stock 1 - ~560000 rank increase
Collecting extend at stock 2 - ~1100000 rank increase
Collecting extend at stock 3 - ~2200000 rank increase
Collecting Special Extend - ~1100000 rank increase

@Herr Schatten: Strawman is basically the Windina of this competition, so stick with that until you're ready for the extra bosses.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:00 am

I wouldn't do such a stupid thing anyways.

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:13 am

Thanks for the rank explanation Twiddle! I really didn't know about the ST1 Boss ca$h collecting affecting rank

.
I'll still do it on Normal Course for score, but I'll certainly leave it alone for Advance - Thanks!

You've made it a lot more clear why I keep encountering rank Hell on the last two stages. My natural oldschool instincts are factoring against me when it comes to life stock, as Herr Schatten also mentioned.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:52 am

You can do worse for points/rank -- it's 500 points for 1024 rank points but picking up excess Large Shots (5000) will increase rank by a few ten thousand or more.

And the biggest blooper of them all is picking up an extend at 3 stock, netting 100000 points for a 2+ million rank increase.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:12 am

I'm totally being that guy and spamming my new scores. I keep 'stopping' for the night only to walk by the cab and start again.

Zakk - 3,907,480 - Team Cowboy - Stage 5 - Strawman(A)

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:05 am

Twiddle wrote;

And the biggest blooper of them all is picking up an extend at 3 stock, netting 100000 points for a 2+ million rank increase.

Yup, and that's exactly what I did on one run last night

- Grubby simply would...not...die at the resultant rank

.

namagomi · Post by **namagomi** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:57 am

namagomi - 1.293.490 - team germany - stage 3

edit: forgot the ship: team psychic (mame)

zinger · Post by **zinger** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:41 pm

zinger Team Sweden 3'235'970 5 MAME Maria (C)

I kept dropping medals througout the run, I'll be back with a better score...

mulletgeezer · Post by **mulletgeezer** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:02 pm

I wonder - might it be possible on the Korean version to lose one's last life a few points shy of an extend, to receive the 4,000,000 rank drop and for the debris from the exploding ship to score enough points to earn another extend and continue the game? That would be so cool.